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Sea
Diver

A Quest
for History
Under the Sea

Marion Clayton Link

Rinehart
& Company, Inc.
New York Toronto

Gi pug, Oe
y

Published simultaneously in Canada by

Clarke, Irwin & Company, Ltd., Toronto

®

Copyright © 1958, 1959, by Marion Clayton Link
Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 59-5333

TO MY HUSBAND
who first introduced me
to the wonders of
forest and sky and sea—
and now to that
new frontier, the bottom

of the ocean.

Contents

Part One
The Florida Keys 1

Part Two
The Bahama Islands 103

Part Three
Search for the Santa Maria 157

Part Four
The Silver Shoals 229

Part Five
On the Track of Columbus 297

Bibliography 331

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Several years have passed since Ed and I
first felt the lure of seeking the sunken remains of ancient
sailing ships beneath the clear waters off southern Florida
and the islands of the West Indies. When we made those
first exploratory dives, we were as green as the moray eels
which curled malevolently within the jagged coral reefs.
Like most landsmen, if we had thought about sunken
wrecks at all, we had envisoned them as hoary hulls still
intact upon the bottom, and swarming with fish—dan-
gerous and predatory fish, writhing octopi and huge rays
with flapping wings.

We knew that up until the nineteenth century pirates
had haunted these waters along the Florida coast, operat-
ing from their hide-outs in the complicated inner water-
ways of the Florida keys and the Bahama islands. We
were vaguely aware that Spanish treasure ships had
sailed in great convoys through these waters, laden with
the wealth of the New World, on their way back to
Spain. We knew that many of these ships had met disas-

The Florida Keys 3

ter, not only from pirates, but more often from unex-
pected storms and hurricanes which had carried them
into the reef-strewn waters along the Florida keys.

We had become increasingly aware of the hazards
which these early mariners faced, as we sailed our forty-
three-foot yawl, Blue Heron, up and down the Florida
coasts, weaving in and out of the narrow passages which
cut through the Florida keys, and navigating carefully
about these same dangerous reefs which lay barely con-
cealed several miles from shore, just at the edge of the
Gulf Stream. And all along the coast of Cuba and in the
lovely little harbors which we had found wherever we
went in the Bahamas, we were reminded of the sailors
who had preceded us, when there were no lighthouses or
navigation markers, no accurate charts to indicate dan-
gerous waters, and no auxiliary motors to help the awk-
ward, square-rigged sails keep a ship out of trouble.

But little did we realize that spring of 1951, when we
tied up at Bill Thompson’s yacht basin at Marathon,
where the Florida keys make a big swing toward the west,
that we ourselves were about to become engaged in
the most fascinating series of adventures we had ever
dreamed of.

We had tied up at Bill’s many times during our travels
back and forth from the west coast of Florida to the east.
This time we intended to stop over there before setting
out on a cruise to the Bahama islands, to the east. We
were accompanied by our two sons, William, age 13, and
Clayton, age 9, who were spending their Easter vacation
with us.

Bill Thompson, pioneer owner of one of the earliest
yacht basins to be established between Miami and Key
West, met us at the dock with a hearty welcome.

We greeted him. “What’s new?”

4 Sea Diver

“Come up to the office as soon as you can. I’ve got
something to show you,” he replied.

He had indeed. Coral-crusted cannon balls, a bat-
tered pewter cup and tanker, ivory tusks that were yel-
lowed and flaking, worm and corroded coins and metal
buttons—and a tale of diving on the remains of long-
disintegrated sunken ships not far from the shores of
Key Vaca, on which Marathon is built.

We sat with Bill and his vivacious wife, Ethel, far into
that night, while they regaled us with their story of ex-
ploring these sunken wrecks together with a couple from
Cleveland, whose hobby was skin diving with their chil-
dren during their vacations. Bill said the pair were or-
ganizing a full-sized expedition that spring for a thorough
investigation of three wrecks within the area, which he
had spotted previously while fishing in the offshore waters.

“They have a cannon that they raised,” Bill said,
“and you should see the brass basins, and the coins and
utensils they took home with them.” He lowered his voice.
“There are some metal bars out there on one of the wrecks,
at Looe key. They look suspiciously like silver bars. We
couldn’t break them loose from the coral without some
equipment.” q

Ed and I were both intrigued. We envied these lucky
people from Cleveland who had stumbled upon this en-
ticing adventure under the sea. I wished that I were a
better swimmer. I wished that some such adventure
might happen to us. I was only wishing.

Not so my husband. I had forgotten that, at the be-
ginning of the season, Ed had stowed a heavy metal div-
ing helmet and a crude hand-operated compressor in
the forward hatch. He, too, had begun to consider the
possibilities of diving, although I think his main reason
at that time was the advantage of being able to make

The Florida Keys 5

repairs on Blue Heron’s hull or wheel when the necessity
arose.

The next morning Ed hoisted the helmet to the
deck. Calling on William and Clayton to aid him, he
disappeared in the direction of the swimming pool. When
I had finished the galley work, I donned my bathing suit
and hastened after them. Close by the diving board, the
two boys were taking turns working a wooden lever
back and forth on a small platform, from which extended
a rubber hose. The hose disappeared into the water,
where, I inferred, it was connected to Ed, who was no-
where in sight. Sure enough, a few moments later he
clambered up the steep side of the pool’s coral bank,
clumsily balancing himself against the weight of the hel-
met.

“It works,” he proclaimed with satisfaction in his
voice, “but I need more air.”

I should have realized right then that one of those
crucial times had arrived in Ed’s life when it was essen-
tial for him to progress on to a new enthusiasm.

As a young man in the mid-1920's he had taken up
flying. Those were days when there were few flying
schools; equipment was elementary, and so was the type
of instruction it was possible to receive from the barn-
storming pilots who eked out a precarious livelihood from
the grass airstrips scattered here and there about the coun-
try.

By the time Ed had learned to fly, he was well aware
of the need for a better system of instruction. He designed
and built the first Link trainer, a simple creation intended
to give the student pilot familiarity with handling the
controls of a plane before he left the ground. Throughout
the years of the depression Ed made a meager living by
using this device as the center of a unique flying school
which he established.

6 Sea Diver

It was some years later when his invention at last
caught hold and was adopted by the Army Air Force. To-
day the Link trainer is well known, its complicated elec-
tronic successors simulating the very latest developments
in modern aircraft.

Along with Ed’s interest in flight training came a
lively interest in exploring the possibilities for develop-
ing new and better methods of air navigation. He co-
operated with Captain P. V. H. Weems, U.S.N., the navi-
gation authority, and others in working out and adapting
new types of aviation instruments and equipment, a bub-
ble sextant for use in aircraft, and more efficiently ar-
ranged instrument panels and cockpits. During World
War II his small company mushroomed until he found
himself at the head of a booming enterprise which
played an important role in the success of the whole
Allied air effort.

His entire life pattern has developed in that way, his
inventive mind and creative thinking carrying him along
from one new project to another. It was not surprising
that the conclusion of the war should find him seeking a
change from the rigorous attention to business which the
war years had demanded. From then on, he spent his free
time sailing and racing our lovely forty-three-foot yawl
in the waters around Florida, Cuba and the Bahamas.

Here, too, he was soon making innovations, this time
in the ancient art of sailboat racing. By applying principles
learned in the air to offshore navigation, using air naviga-
tion charts and a radio direction finder, he won the
Havana-St. Petersburg race first in his class and second in
the fleet, though he was a completely unknown newcomer
in the field of ocean racing.

By 1951 the novelty had worn off this strenuous sport.
Ed was fed up with the many weeks of careful prepara-
tion, the difficulties of organizing crews, and the terrific

The Florida Keys le

beating to which Blue Heron was subjected each time she
raced. He was ready for a new activity. In the meantime
he turned to more leisurely cruising, and we spent de-
lightful days and weeks exploring the enchanting Florida
keys clear to their western extremity at Dry Tortugas.

That is how we happened to be at Bill Thompson's
place on the Florida bay shores of Marathon. Here we
intended to prepare Blue Heron for a long-anticipated
cruise to the Bahamas. When we were ready to sail, it
would be simple to circle west and south, slice through
the opening in Seven Mile bridge and head for Bimini,
nearly 150 miles away.

But it was at this point that Bill Thompson succeeded
in changing our entire outlook. Now he and Ed ar-
ranged for us to return to Marathon from the Bahama
cruise at the end of May, in time to join the expedition
which was slated to explore the three ancient ships that
Bill had discovered lying on the bottom not many miles
away.

The search was being organized by Jane and Barney
Crile, the couple from Cleveland who had made the initial
explorations with Bill. (The remainder of the time Barney
was the very capable and well-known Dr. Crile of the
Cleveland Clinic). Now they were recruiting equipment
and a party of divers to continue their exploration of the
three ships. Upon hearing of Ed’s interest in the enter-
prise and of the Blue Heron, which would be available
for their use, they were glad to welcome him into their
group.

I realized that this new pastime of skin diving and
searching the remains of sunken ships would necessarily
make some changes in the way we were accustomed to
spending our days aboard Blue Heron. But little did I
realize that it would lead to the eventual disposal of our

8 Sea Diver

beloved sailboat and the substitution of a sturdy, sea-
going shrimp trawler.

Neither did I foresee that I would soon be following
Ed about the bottom of the sea in waters surrounding the
most dangerous and frightening reefs in our part of the
world, even to the most remote sections of the Caribbean.

In fact, at that time I did not even consider taking
part in this underwater adventure, for I was a very poor
swimmer. But I was keenly interested in the romance of
an adventure involving sunken ships, the lure of possible
treasure finds, and the sudden, mysterious disappearance
of ancient Spanish galleons, pirate ships, slavers and
square-rigged men-of-war into the sea. The finds which
Bill Thompson had exhibited to us teased my imagina-
tion. What exciting objects might be found beneath coral
and sand which had concealed them from human eyes
these hundreds of years!

Having been unable to join the diving expedition at
its start in the latter part of May, I finally arrived in Mara-
thon on June sixth. The party had been at work more than
a week. When the diver-explorers came in from the reefs
that night, and we gathered about the outdoor grill to
broil fresh-caught barracuda, which they had brought
with them, I met nearly thirty men, women and children
overflowing with enthusiasm and anticipation of what the
next day’s diving would bring forth.

I felt immediately as if I had always known the
warm-hearted Crile family. I admired the way blonde,
pretty Jane unconcernedly managed her brood of four,
even as she and Barney performed a complicated sleight
of hand with a half dozen cameras and underwater cases
which they were reloading. And I was entertained at
the masterly fashion in which Barney divided himself
between assisting with the cameras and supervising the

The Florida Keys 9

preparation of the barracuda, which was sputtering ap-
petizingly over the fire.

Assisting Barney at the fire was a good-looking young
man with rather bold brown eyes and a heavy shadow of
beard on his mobile face. I was impressed to learn that
this was Mendel Peterson, acting head of the Department
of History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washing-
ton. He had joined the expedition as part of his summer
vacation, to lend what aid he could in identifying the ma-
terial brought up by the divers. It was his first venture in
the realms of underwater archeology.

The others in the party were friends of the Criles,
the men and children having the time of their lives with
this submarine adventure; the women who had accom-
panied their families finding their fun in sunbathing,
swimming and watching the activities beneath the water.
They made a most congenial group.

We set out the next morning under a hot summer sun,
three ill-assorted craft—a cruiser, which was used for
sport fishing the remainder of the year; a sturdy LCP
boat with two decks, which had been chartered for the
expedition; and Blue Heron, whose sleek lines and delicate
grace were never designed for hauling heavy cannon
from the ocean floor.

The sea was calm. Now and then, from the deck, I
caught glimpses of large fish gliding by. Once we sailed
through a patch of hundreds of thousands of tiny fish,
close-packed. Even as we watched, they spattered the
surface like rain as the fringes of the school were raided
by avaricious barracuda.

Vital, our French-Canadian deckhand, who had ac-
companied Ed south for the first time from our lodge in the
Canadian bush, threw over a fishing line. It had barely hit
the water when it was carried away in a wild rush. A few
minutes later he pulled aboard a thrashing thirty-pound

10 Sea Diver

savage of the sea, one of those same barracuda. I shud-
dered at the thought of undertaking my first dive in the
company of this toothy monster. And I looked admiringly,
but also with perplexity, at the mothers and fathers in
the party who were willing not only to face these under-
water terrors themselves, but also to allow their children
to go overboard.

About four miles out, not far from Sombrero light-
house, the cruiser dropped anchor on what had come to be
called the “ivory wreck” because of the number of ivory
tusks which had been recovered there the previous year.
Aboard with the Crile family was Arthur McKee, a profes-
sional diver and owner of the Museum of Sunken Treasure,
a collection of underwater relics located at Plantation key,
some fifty miles nearer Miami. Having made the initial
discoveries on the ivory wreck the previous year with Bill
Thompson, Jane and Barney were eager to explore it fur-
ther.

Blue Heron and the LCP boat continued a quarter
mile further on to Delta shoal, where Bill, in the years be-
fore the war, had discovered scores of cannon piled like
matchsticks. Most of these cannon had been removed
during the war years by professional salvagers and sold
for scrap; but Bill, after long search, had finally relocated
the spot by means of two cannon which the salvagers
had missed, probably because the guns were buried
beneath the shifting bottom sand at that time.

The divers had attached lines to one of these cannon
the previous day, to prepare it for hauling. An empty
bottle attached to one of these lines floated on the surface,
marking the location. We anchored Blue Heron almost di-
rectly over it, and the LCP boat, manned by Bill Thomp-
son and a lively crew of divers of all ages, cast anchor close
by.

Soon the whole area was athrob with activity. Three

The Florida Keys 11

gasoline compressors blasted the air with sound on the
LCP boat, and another labored on board Blue Heron. Red
and green air hoses trailed from the boats and streaked the
placid blue-green waters. Circles of white bubbles rose
from the bottom in geyserlike shafts as the divers worked
below, dimly glimpsed from the surface, colorful in yellow
jerseys and black knit tights.

Swimmers splashed about on the surface with face
masks, snorkels and fins as they viewed the bottom from
above, seeking clues to new discoveries. Everyone was
fully clothed. The veteran divers in the party wore black
ballet tights or long ski underwear with bright-colored
long-sleeved jerseys. The novices wore long-sleeved shirts, |
dungarees and shoes.

There were several good reasons for donning these
costumes, I soon discovered. In the first place, the quiet
waters of early summer had produced quantities of jelly-
fish, which, pale, ephemeral and ghostly, clouded the
tepid waters. In spite of their protective clothing, many of
the divers had come in contact with these jellyfish and
were covered with a livid rash which looked and itched
like measles. Also, the extra clothing acted as padding for
the heavy lead weights which were worn across the chest
or around the waist. And when the diver reached the bot-
tom, he needed protection from the sharp coral rocks,
which often caused poisonous infections, and from the
many porcupine-like sea urchins which dotted the bot-
tom.

I watched while two divers completed attaching lines
from the winches to the cannon below. At last everything
was ready. Two men manned the hand anchor winch;
two others worked aft. They could make only a few turns
at a time, for the pull of the heavy cannon was tremen-
dous. At last they had it off the bottom. Long, lazy
swells rolled in from the ocean. The swells, combined with

12 Sea Diver

the weight of the cannon, caused Blue Heron to roll
badly. With each roll the cannon was lifted several feet
and dropped back against the sharp coral on the bottom.

Ed put on a diving mask and went overboard to see
how things were progressing. He found that the coral
which coated the cannon was cutting through the ropes,
which would undoubtedly be severed before the gun
could be raised. He returned for some steel cable and de-
parted below once more to reinforce the load. Sitting
astride the iron barrel while fastening the cables, he
plunged up and down with the motion of the boat as if he
were riding a bucking horse.

With makeshift equipment and the well-intentioned
but awkward efforts of the amateur crew, it was hours
before the cannon was finally raised and secured to a spot
in the curve of Blue Heron’s bottom and keel, where it
was made fast for the journey to shore.

It was then that Ed indicated the time had come for
me to make my first dive. I had avoided thinking about it
all day. I was eager to try it, and yet I was filled with
trepidation. What if the air hose should kink, or the com-
pressor cease operating? What if I should meet up with a
shark or barracuda? What if I should get panicky and be
unable to reach the surface fast enough? I had almost a
phobia against putting my head underwater or getting
water up my nose.

Outwardly calm, I donned jersey and dungarees over
my swim suit, tied on my deck shoes and bathing cap and
waited to have the diving mask adjusted—not the clumsy
metal helmet which Ed had experimented with earlier in
the year, but a Desco mask, a triangle of glass edged with
black rubber, equipped with intake and exhaust valves
and connected to a hundred feet of hose. Air, cool and
comforting, poured in through the open valve as Ed tight-
ened the fastenings of the mask about my face.

The Florida Keys 13

I climbed clumsily over the side of the ship and down
a rope ladder into the water. As I had been instructed, I
stuck my head into the water to see that the mask was
tight and the air flowing properly. Little bubbles of air
promptly left the exhaust valve and rose to the surface. I
had been told to place the air hose under my left arm, and
a circlet of lead weights had been hung over my right
shoulder to give me additional weight on the bottom.

Ed went down with me. He wore an Aqualung, a self-
contained diving unit, with a tank strapped to his back,
for during the previous week he had acquired a much
broader skill in the use of various types of diving equip-
ment. Already a competent swimmer and diver, it had not
taken him long to master the necessary techniques, for he
also possessed the confidence and self-assurance which I
so greatly lacked in this strange and unknown environment.

I felt my way down the life line suspended from the
ship. Ed hovered close at my side. As the water closed in
overhead, a lovely crystalline light sifted through it, and
a steady path of bubbles streaked to the surface from my
mask. Floating through the water to a depth of at least
ten feet were innumerable transparent jellyfish. I was glad
for the protection of many clothes. My ears hurt and
popped. I slowed my descent, conscious of advice that I
must neither ascend nor descend quickly, because rapid
changes of pressure are dangerous.

Above me as I descended, the outline of Blue Her-
on’s keel and bottom took shape, and I could see the can-
non strapped snugly in its curve. The green light grew
dimmer, for it was now late in the afternoon, though it
was still sufficiently bright to make out the spectacular
ocean floor below.

But there was trouble from an unexpected quarter.
My feet, in their canvas shoes, insisted upon floating. As
I descended the rope, I had great trouble keeping them

14 Sea Diver

lower than my head. When I reached the bottom, I could
not get my feet down; they seemed determined to go off
on an exploring trip of their own. Ed, seeing my pre-
dicament, surfaced and soon returned with extra weights,
which he put in my dungaree pockets. That helped some,
and I was able to put my feet on the bottom, but my ef-
forts at walking were very unsteady.

I stood on the white-sand bottom twenty-five feet be-
low and looked around me. A beautiful sea garden
stretched out on every side, a world of waving sea grasses,
fantastic coral formations and lacy traceries of sea fans.
Here were cool caves from whose crevasses undulated the
feelers of giant crawfish; beneath the sheltering ledges lay
broken bits of coral and shells.

Ed touched my arm and beckoned me to follow him.
He led me to a pit in the sandy bottom where lay a can-
non crusted with coral and covered with sea growth.
Scattered in the sand lay dozens of purple-tinged, porcu-
pine-like sea urchins, forming a protective ring around the
cannon. The spiny creatures frightened me, and I backed
away, lost my precarious balance and wavered helplessly
toward another pit, which was liberally dotted with more
sea urchins. :

It was only by a tremendous effort that I saved my-
self from tumbling among them. In my excitement I
gulped great quantities of air and then found myself
gasping for breath. The hose could not conduct air fast
enough to satisfy my urgent requirements. My heart
pounded. I felt stifled in the small confines of the face
mask. Then, my feet once more safely on the bottom, I
regained control of myself, and my breathing slowed to
the point where the air hose could take care of the situa-
tion again.

I did not stay down long that day. After one more
survey of that underwater world and its wonders, I inched

The Florida Keys 15

slowly up the life line toward the surface and climbed
back aboard Blue Heron, thrilled at what I had seen, my
heart still palpitating with the excitement and adventure
of it all. I was determined that I would learn more about
this underwater skill before I went down again, so that I
could really explore the bottom for myself.

We hoisted anchors and, with the cannon lashed to
the underside of the boat, got under way, listing heavily
to starboard, our speed cut in half by the additional drag.
It was many hours later when we tied up at the dock, too
late to examine our prize that night.

There was much curiosity and excitement the next
morning as we gathered around the old gun while Mendel
Peterson and Ed chipped away at the coral which covered
it. Beneath the coral, upon its metal sides, we might find
an answer to the identity of the ship which had foundered.

It was an interesting old weapon with many ridges,
tapering to a small muzzle and ending in a heavy ring. The
coral covering broke off in great chunks at the blows of
the iron mallets. And there on its broad back was suddenly
revealed, crudely cast in the metal, the inscription “anno
1617.”

We couldn't believe it! Here was a real find, from a
ship which must have sunk about the time the Pilgrim
Fathers first came to the New World.

What kind of a ship had it been, Spanish or English?
Was it on a mission of peace or war? What had happened
to bring its sudden end upon this lonely reef? Had it been
sunk in battle? Had it run upon the reef in a storm? Or
had it been sailing along in seemingly clear waters, miles
from shore, when suddenly it had struck the treacherous
underwater coral?

Mendel Peterson gazed at it with particular interest.
He had already identified the wreck on Looe key as an
English warship. At this time, he could only assume that

16 Sea Diver

the ivory wreck had been a vessel engaged in the slave
trade, of uncertain age and nationality. The third wreck,
from which had come this early-seventeenth-century can-
non, was Spanish, he was quite certain. More than that he
could not say until he had had a better opportunity to
identify the gun. It puzzled him that while each of the
other two wrecks had yielded a variety of artifacts fur-
nishing broad hints as to the country of their origin, so
far nothing but cannon had been found at the location on
Delta reef.

Pete, as we came to know Mendel Peterson, turned
out to be an indispensable member of the expedition.
His head was packed with a fund of historical facts and
figures which were invaluable, as well as a broad knowl-
edge of old armament, which was his special hobby.

It was Pete who was responsible for channeling Ed’s
developing interest in the underwater world into the field
of marine archeology, for it was impossible to discover
these ancient artifacts without feeling a tantalizing curi-
osity as to their origin. What had started out to be merely
a new sport for the Links soon resolved itself into a con-
suming and enthralled interest in the past history of that
part of the world. We questioned Pete at length.

It was early in the sixteenth century, soon after Cortez
conquered the rich lands of Mexico, Pete told us, that the
Straits of Florida, leading between the Florida coast and
the Bahama islands, became the regular sailing path for
most of the ships returning to Europe from the vicinity of
the Caribbean. It had not taken the early navigators long
to discover that while the best route to the New World
led from Europe south toward the Cape Verde islands,
westward to the vicinity of Trinidad, and then across the
Caribbean with the southeast trades to the early seaports
of Cartagena, Vera Cruz and Havana, the most favorable
return route carried them northward through the Straits

The Florida Keys 17

of Florida, then known as the Bahama canal, until they
caught the westerly winds which would assist them back
to Europe.

Early sailing route from Europe and return.

Unfortunately the narrow Straits of Florida, while
providing both the helpful currents of the Gulf Stream
and a normally prevailing southeast wind, also carried the
hazards of a line of offshore reefs several miles from the
almost invisible shore line of the Florida keys. For cen-
turies, hundreds of ships were destroyed along these reefs.

It took only a brief glimpse at a chart of this area for
us to understand why the waters in the vicinity of Mara-
thon and the adjacent keys would be particularly rich in
wrecks, for it is here that the line of keys swings from an
almost north and south direction to east and west, the coral
reefs following the same line several miles at sea. A ship
feeling its way northward through the narrow straits, if it

&
IS Sea Diver

erred in its position even slightly, could find itself in these
dangerous waters.

Add to that the hazards of hurricanes and violent
storms, and it was easy to see why so many ships ended
up on the reefs. Unfortunately most of these reefs are just
underwater, so that they are not visible from the surface.
And because they lie at the edge of the Gulf Stream, where
the bottom drops suddenly to depths of several hundred
feet, well beyond the reach of the average sounding line,
their presence would be undetected until the ship sud-
denly encountered them. Because of the distance of the
reefs from shore, there must have been many times at
night or in poor visibility when they could be struck with-
out any warning that land was near.

The three wrecks which Bill Thompson had come
across while trolling a fish line about the reefs were no
doubt indicative of dozens more which must lie along this
250-mile-long string of keys. However, were it not for the
cannon, those coral-covered logs which Bill had spotted
from the surface, the final resting place of the wrecks
would still be a secret, for during the two to three hun-
dred years these ships had lain on the bottom, they had
completely disintegrated. It would not be easy to find the
remains of other wrecks; almost impossible if the cannon
had already been removed.

The wreck at Looe key, on which we were to dive the
next day, had already been well worked over by the group.
Ed, Barney, and Jane had labored a day and almost a
whole night to raise and bring back to Marathon the two-
thousand-pound cannon which now lay in a fresh-water
bath near Bills swimming pool. On it they found a
crowned rose, insignia of British royalty.

In a protected enclosure near Bill’s house lay charred
pieces of wood from the ship’s big timbers, corroded iron
ballast, dozens of cannon balls of many sizes, bar shot

r The Florida Keys 19

and grapeshot. There was a copper hoop from a powder
keg. There were bones, even part of a jawbone with the
teeth still intact. There were bits from a Chinese porcelain
bowl, the remains of a fine crystal unguent jar, a pewter
mug, spun-copper plates and utensils and a brass door
knocker.

These last had been found in one locale, indicating
that they came from the aft section of the ship, the cap-
tain’s quarters. At a spot some distance away had been
found pieces of coarse, blue, salt-glazed eighteenth-
century pottery; worn pieces of green-glass rum bottles,
with the corks still in the necks of two of them; and the
fairly complete remains of several clay pipes. This would
appear to have been the crew’s quarters.

Several worn and corroded coins of various nations,
which had been found in scattered places on the wreck,
were being carefully cherished by their finders. The latest
date, 1720, appeared on a Swedish copper piece.

From these finds Pete had been able to reconstruct a
fairly complete account of the shipwreck. He visualized a
British warship of the larger class striking the reef some-
time between 1720 and 1750. He said that it had probably
met its end from natural causes rather than in battle, as
the tompion was still in the mouth of the cannon which
had been raised.

He felt quite certain that the ship was British be-
cause, in addition to the crowned rose which marked the
cannon, many of the six-pound and twelve-pound cannon
balls were engraved with a broad arrow indicating that
they were British property. He figured that it was a war-
ship rather than a merchant ship because of the number
and size of the cannon and the large amount of ammu-
nition it had carried, as well as the heap of iron ballast
which was composed of bars molded to conform to the
hull of the ship. A merchant ship would have carried only

20 Sea Diver

a few cannon of smaller size, and expendable ballast such
as stone, he said.

It was these bars of iron ballast which had originally
excited Bill Thompson and the Criles when they first
dove on the wreck. I recalled Bill’s hushed secrecy the
night he had told us about them. He was so sure they had
discovered a pile of silver bars. Today, with more experi-
ence behind me, I can understand his mistake, for it is
very difficult on the ocean bottom to distinguish between
silver and other metals, once they have become coated
with a black corrosion.

Pete fixed the date of the ship’s sinking between 1720
and 1750 for two reasons: the date of 1720 was the latest
to be found on any of the coins which had been retrieved,
and the cannon was marked with the crowned rose, an
insignia which was not used after the death of Queen Anne
in 1714. As the life of an iron cannon was only about
thirty-five years, Pete figured that such a cannon would
not have been aboard a ship later than 1750.

Subsequent investigation revealed that Pete was right
in every respect. Returning to Washington with his data,
he searched through the casualty lists of the British Royal
Navy of the eighteenth century and found the entry,
“1743 [sic] Looe 44 guns, Capt. Ashby Utting, lost in
America.”

Of course, that was how Looe key had received its
name! Later we learned the complete story of the destruc-
tion of the Looe from the Admiralty records.

His Majesty’s Ship Looe had sailed from England in
August of 1743 under the command of Captain Ashby Ut-
ting, to carry Governor Clinton and his family to New
York and then “to attend on the colony of South Caro-
lina.” She spent the remainder of the year cruising be-
tween Cape Florida and the northwest part of the Grand
Bahamas, under orders to protect English and Colonial

The Florida Keys 21

shipping from the Spanish, with whom England was at
wat.

Later this patrol was extended farther south to in-
clude the waters adjacent to Cuba and the Florida keys.
On February 4, 1744, while cruising in the straits off
Havana, Captain Utting captured a Spanish vessel and
headed north through the Florida straits, followed by his
POLIZED 1)

Either the ship’s navigator miscalculated, or unknown
currents carried the Looe well off her course and to the
west. In spite of frequent and careful soundings, shortly
after midnight she found herself in the white breakers
marking a small key which raised itself slightly above the
surface of the water. She struck just as the officer on watch
discovered their predicament. The ship first lost her tiller
and then the rudder as she swung about in the tide. Water
poured into the hull as she bilged, and the hold started to
fill as she pounded upon the rocks.

There was just time to get the men ashore and to
save twenty bags of bread and six barrels of gunpowder.
It was fortunate indeed for her crew of nearly three hun-
dred men that there was land upon which to disembark.
The Spanish snow, which had been following the Looe
closely, also piled up on the shore a short distance to port,
where she soon began to break up.

It was not until morning that they discovered they
were on a small key several miles off the “Martires,” south
of Cape Florida, for the navigator had been positive they
had struck on Double Headed Shot cay many miles to the
east.

Captain Utting realized that he and the men in his
care were in a most desperate plight. They could expect
only capture and imprisonment from their enemies, the
Spanish, in nearby Cuba, and the hostile Caloosa Indians

22 Sea Diver

who inhabited the Florida keys were noted for their
cruelty to shipwrecked mariners.

With both ships destroyed, they had only three small
craft—a longboat, a yawl which was merely a double-
ended rowboat, and the captain’s barge. It was hundreds
of miles to the English Port Royal in South Carolina, from
whence they had come; and it was a considerable distance,
with unfavorable winds, to the nearest English settlement
of New Providence in the heart of the Bahamas.

There was no water available on the sandy islet upon
which they found themselves; all they had were the few
casks which they had been able to salvage from the
wrecked ships. It was apparent also that a heavy storm
would, in all probability, carry the seas completely over
the surface of the low island. Their predicament was grave
indeed.

As Captain Utting pondered their unhappy pros-
pects, a lookout spied a sloop at sea, headed toward the
northwest. When it failed to answer their signals, the cap-
tain commanded that the men arm themselves and take
three small craft after it. He ordered them to use every
means in their power to capture it, for it might well be
their only means of escape.

The little flotilla did not return until ale next morn-
ing, but they brought the sloop with them. Its Spanish
crew, they reported, had escaped in the ship’s lone boat
and headed back toward Havana.

Captain Utting immediately set the men to work to
equip the four available boats for their journey. The sides
of the longboat were built up with timbers from the
wrecked Looe, to increase its capacity and its safety, and
all four boats were supplied as generously as possible with
bread, water and ammunition.

By noon of the fourth day they were ready to start.

The Florida Keys 93

Sixty men were assigned to the longboat, ten to the yawl,
twenty to the captain’s barge, and 184 were crowded into
the captured sloop which Utting estimated to weigh “not
30 tuns.” As a last precaution to prevent the Spanish from
salvaging the wrecked ships, the Captain ordered them
burned. As the survivors pulled away in their heavily
loaded craft, the Looe and her companion snow blazed up
in flames, This explained the charred and blackened tim-
bers which our party had found on the wreck.

Captain Utting ordered the boats to head for New
Providence in the Bahamas, but by the next morning the
three small boats had outstripped the sloop, with its
astounding quota of passengers, and were no longer in
sight. Finding it impossible to hold the heavily laden
sloop on a course to the east against the prevailing wind,
the men aboard yielded to necessity and allowed the cur-
rent of the Gulf Stream to carry them northward toward
Port Royal.

They arrived there on February thirteenth, five days
later, thanking God for their safe passage. No one knew
better than they that the overloaded vessel would have
capsized in the slightest weather. The other three boats
also reached their destination, New Providence, without
mishap.

As Blue Heron glided along the ocean side of Looe
key in still, clear waters, I stood on the bow scanning the
bottom for signs of the wreck. I could feel the goose pim-
ples rise as I looked at the cruel fingers of coral reaching
seaward for new prey, for I saw that the reef was fash-
ioned with alternate sharp ridges and declivities that ex-
tended from the solid bank of the inner side. Although
this bank was now underwater, due to some past hurri-
cane which had stripped it of vegetation and soil, it was

24 Sea Diver

here, I realized, that the survivors of the Looe had spent
four anxious days.

Ed nosed Blue Heron in between two of the extend-
ing teeth and dropped the fore and aft anchors. I saw
that the wreck had settled into the narrow valley be-
tween. Again, it was only because of the cannon lying on
the bottom that we were able to relocate it so easily. The
other two boats, which had followed us, anchored nearby.

As the morning wore on, I swam about on the surface
with face mask and flippers, fascinated at the activities
which I could glimpse beneath the water. In one place the
coral came so close to the surface I could kick it with my
flippers. Then it dropped off sheer to the ocean bottom
thirty feet below, where the divers were working. I could
scarcely wait to join them. It seemed hours before my turn
finally arrived.

This time I was better prepared. Instead of weights
hanging loose from one shoulder, I wore a weighted belt
across my chest, for Ed was afraid that if it were fastened
about my waist, I would not be able to remove it quickly
enough in case of emergency. On my feet I wore those
blessed flippers, which proved to be the means of making
my feet do what I wanted them to.

I lowered myself slowly along the life line until my
feet hit the edge of a wire basket placed on the bottom as
a repository for the divers’ finds. A heavy black air hose
hung from the boat above; it was being used to clean away
coral chips and sand from the objects on the bottom. I
paused and looked around.

Towering high above the narrow valley on either
side were coral cliffs and caves, from which grew beautiful
sea fans and other branching Gorgonia. In my ignorance
at the time I thought the animal-celled Gorgonia was
vegetation.

The Florida Keys 25

Tiny, bright-colored fish swam about my feet. A huge
pinkish-brown hog snapper hovered nearby. As I watched,
three large, beautiful, black-and-gold angelfish sailed ma-
jestically past, waving their fins in slow and perfect
rhythm, while just beyond, a single brilliant-blue angel-
fish shyly looked out from behind a pinnacle of coral rock
on the valley floor.

This time, with the aid of the flippers, I was able to
swim about this strange undersea ravine, floating up the
steep sides of the coral rocks, peeping into eerie chasms and
then gliding down to examine a nearly buried cannon,
scarcely distinguishable under its disguise of coral. It was
then I saw the giant anchor of the sunken warship, coral-
covered and almost hidden under a jutting shelf of rock.
Its huge ring was large enough to swim through. The
shank, half buried in the coral, still revealed a section
longer than myself. It must have weighed more than a
ton. I hovered over it enthralled.

For more than an hour I explored this lovely spot,
getting tremendous satisfaction out of playing fish. And
the fish didn’t seem to mind at all this clumsy, strange-
looking creature from the world above. They swam about
me, snouting out food from the bottom, playing tag with
each other, completely oblivious of me.

With startling suddenness the realization came to me.
I was no longer fearful of this strange environment. I was
at last at home on the bottom.

26 Sea Diver

By the time that first expedition was over,
Ed and I were confirmed divers and treasure seekers. We
had been afflicted with a contagion which was to lead us
on strange and unexpected adventures. Following its on-
set we found ourselves unable to resist tales of treasure-
laden ships lying upon the ocean floor, their contents still
untouched. We felt sure that they only awaited our com-
ing to surrender vast quantities of riches.

This virtually inescapable malady was to lead us to
risk our boats and equipment many times, and even our
lives, in treacherous reef-strewn waters, oftentimes far
from sight of land. Before the disease had run its course,
we had visited every part of the far-flung Bahamas, had fol-
lowed the lure of sunken treasure clear to the Silver shoals,
a forty-mile-square area of scattered reefs lying between
the remote Turks islands and Hispaniola, shunned by every
mariner since the time of Columbus. And off the southern
shores of Jamaica we found ourselves battling the wind
and tides which constantly assault the long, lean line of

The Florida Keys 27

Banner reef, scarred with the wreckage of many a ship
headed across the Caribbean.

But, fortunately, though we fought a losing battle
against this treasure-hunting disease, we built up a sec-
ondary infection—a consuming interest in the past history
of this part of the New World. The ensuing years found
us spending an increasing amount of time poring over old
charts, government records and accounts of the adven-
turers of those early days.

Our awakened curiosity led us to ponder many ques-
tions. Just where did Columbus actually first set foot on
American soil? Which path did he choose to sail the Santa
Maria through the Bahamas before that ill-fated ship met
her doom on a reef off the north coast of Hispaniola?
Could we possibly locate the wreckage of the famous
flagship? Would there be any evidence of it still in exist-
ence today?

We read about the notorious city of Port Royal,
Jamaica, which sank beneath the sea in an earthquake
one summer's day in 1692. From all we could gather, no
real attempt had ever been made to salvage it. Eventu-
ally we were to feel compelled to explore these long-lost
ruins. The urge was irresistible.

Thus it was that when we headed north in the sum-
mer of 1951 from our first adventure in the Florida keys,
loaded with cannon balls, copper pans and twisted pieces
of ship’s rigging, we could hardly wait for the coming
year, when we planned to return for further search in that
graveyard of early ships.

Ed set the date for the end of the following January.
By then the hurricane season, which spans a period from
July through November, would be well over; his business
would be sufficiently under control so that he could leave
it for several months; and he would have had time to

28 Sea Diver

prepare the equipment which must be ready to commence
operations in the spring. We even planned to place Wil-
liam and Clayton in school at Fort Lauderdale so that the
family would not be so widely separated. They would be
able to join us weekends and at Easter vacation.

During the June days that we had spent diving from
the teakwood decks of Blue Heron, rigging block and
tackle from her mast, and worrying over the damage that
was inevitably done to her white sides and mahogany
rails, Ed’s ever-active mind had mulled over the problem
of how to remedy these difficulties before our return the
following winter. He was finally convinced that he would
have to secure a boat more adequate for the job than
Blue Heron had proved to be. A heavier and sturdier
craft was needed.

An answer was not long in coming. One evening in New
York, soon after we returned north, he was talking enthusi-
astically to a friend, Lee Warrender, about the results of
his first diving venture. Before the evening was over, Lee
had volunteered to supply his boat, Eryholme, a seventy-
five-foot twin-diesel cruiser, for the task. We were also to
have the services of her captain, Ray Budd, who was thor-
oughly familiar with the boat. The arrangement seemed
ideal, and straightaway the two men started making plans
for the necessary conversion.

A crane was erected on the forward deck for raising
heavy objects, and the deck was reinforced. Davits were
installed on the starboard side, where Ed planned to carry
a glass-bottomed skiff he was designing. In the years to
come, that small boat would prove to be one of our most
useful possessions. It had two plates of Plexiglas in the
bow just where it curved upward, so that a person could
lie on the bottom and watch the ocean floor spread away
on either side. Then, just in front of the aft seat by the out-
board motor, another large panel was inserted, so that the

The Florida Keys 29

bottom could be viewed straight down by either the pilot
of the boat or a second observer.

With the clarity of those southern waters, it should
be possible to see objects on the bottom without any diffi-
culty. By plotting definite tracks back and forth within a
limited area, we should be able to discover any evidence
of the wreckage of sunken ships. We knew now from ex-
perience that the remains of any ship old enough to be of
historic interest would not be lying there with hull intact,
awaiting our discovery. We could only hope to find coral-
encrusted cannon, possibly an anchor, a disordered pile
of ballast stone, or even the round shapes of cannon balls,
almost hidden in enveloping sand or coral.

We planned that coming season to make a further
search of the three wrecks we had worked on near Mara-
thon. We also intended to comb the waters along the reefs
all up and down the ocean side of the Florida keys. Al-
ready we had garnered many tales from local fishermen
who had seen cannon or piles of cannon balls on the bot-
tom. Bill Thompson had discovered the first three wrecks
seemingly without difficulty. We really anticipated little
trouble in locating dozens of other wrecks, for there were
treacherous reefs all up and down the coastline.

What we did not realize was that we had been blessed
with a continuous streak of perfect diving weather the
whole time we had spent at Marathon that first summer—
a series of absolutely calm days without wind or waves,
making it possible to anchor at will and to dive from early
morning until dark. Furthermore, there had been no diffi-
culty in locating the wrecks, for the calm waters were so
clear that by standing on the bow of the boat it was pos-
sible to see everything on the bottom as if in a mirror.

We discovered, soon after our arrival in Marathon in
1952, that while winter weather may be ideal for sail-

30 Sea Diver

boating, it is not the kind of weather one would select for
diving, or even for searching in the vicinity of wave-
roughened reefs. Day after day we experienced strong
southeast winds, which occasionally veered into the south
and west before developing into a full-blown winter
“norther.”

However, we found plenty to do the first two weeks
in equipping Eryholme for her new activities and in test-
ing the endless variety of equipment which Ed had
shipped south. In addition to a small air compressor and
three sets of Desco face plates, the paraphernalia included
an outfit of self-contained Aqualung equipment and the
large, clumsy white suit and lead boots of the so-called
heavy diver.

But chief among the new equipment was an under-
water metal detector which Ed had rebuilt from a type of
land-mine detector developed during World War II. It
consisted of a long black rod with a coil of wire sealed
into a circle of clear Plexiglas at one end. In a waterproof
tank at the other end were located the electronic gear and
batteries and an electric meter to indicate the presence
of metal. With this equipment Ed felt sure he would be
able to locate cannon and other metal objects buried be-
neath the coral or under the sandy bottom.

We had flown to Marathon from our home in Bing-
hamton, New York, in our five-place Grumman Widgeon,
which Ed planned to use as part of his search equipment.
It had already proved its worth the previous summer for
spotting the outline of reefs and the most likely places for
search. But we had also found at that time that it was
next to impossible to make out objects on the bottom
through the surface of the water. An airplane traveled too
fast for such reconnaissance.

The amphibian definitely had its uses, however, as

The Florida Keys 31

we had discovered one morning when Ed set out with
Jane and Barney to fly over the wreck sites on which they
had been diving at Delta shoal and Looe key.

It was a calm, lovely day, and it seemed very possible
that beneath the mirrorlike surface they might detect
evidence which had hitherto escaped their search. The
brown shadows of the reefs showed up in distinct patterns
beneath the turquoise blue of the surrounding waters.

They flew low over the two locations near Sombrero
light, quickly spotting the bottle markers they had left
floating to identify them. There were no reefs near the
surface at either of these places, and they found it impos-
sible to see the cannon they had been diving on twenty-
five feet beneath the surface.

_ Swinging the plane southwest, parallel to Seven Mile
bridge and Bahia Honda bridge, they flew toward Ameri-
can Shoals light, twenty miles beyond, searching the water
as they went for the pole marker which indicated Looe
key. At last the reef appeared beneath them, the jagged
coral fingers of its seaward side standing out plainly as
they viewed it from the air.

Upon the surface, between two of these fingers, they
saw a small boat, probably a fishing boat, for none of our
party had planned to dive there that day. They had
worked until well after sunset the previous night to raise
a cannon from the Looe and tow it back to Marathon.
Because of the dark, Ed had been forced to abandon one
of Blue Heron’s anchors, which had caught in the bottom
coral. Now he looked for the buoy which he had left to
mark it.

Then he realized that the fishing boat was on the
wreck site. Circling the reef as he lost altitude, in order
to have a better look at the area, he suddenly compre-
hended that the two men in the fishing boat were engaged
in pulling up the long nylon line which he had left at-

32 Sea Diver

tached to his anchor. Three hundred feet of new nylon
line! As he watched, one of the men took a knife from his
pocket and, having pulled as much free line as possible
into the boat, slashed it apart.

That was too much for Ed. With a muttered impreca-
tion, he wheeled the Widgeon into a steep dive, leveled
off in a quick approach to the calm waters off the reef,
and before the startled fishermen knew what had hap-
pened, taxied up to their boat. As he cut his motors, he
shouted indignantly, “Hey, that’s my line youre taking.
What’s the idea?”

Salvagers there have been in the Florida keys for
many centuries, both honest and dishonest. But that was
probably the first time that two thieving fishermen, secure
in the knowledge that there were no other boats in sight,
were suddenly apprehended from the skies.

Sheepishly they handed over the severed line. They
were too startled to find an excuse for their act. Putting
on their motor, they quickly disappeared toward shore.

It was not until the second Sunday in February that
the wind went down sufficiently for us to venture out.
William and Clayton were with us for the weekend. We
set out for Looe key early that morning, intending to
anchor near the remains of the Looe. Captain Budd and
Ed spent nearly an hour maneuvering Eryholme into a
safe position, her stern anchored near the edge of the
reefs, her bow headed out toward the Gulf Stream, so that
it would be possible in case of emergency to pull up
anchor and head seaward, away from the dangerous coral.

There was still a good breeze from the northeast, and
the small, glass-bottomed boat bounced about in prodi-
gious waves when we pulled her alongside to load her. Ed
and the two boys piled into the boat and the three set out
toward the reef to search for the cannon that marked the

The Florida Keys 33

Looe. William ran the outboard, while Ed and Clayton
gazed down through the glass as they sprawled in the bot-
tom of the boat.

They were back in almost no time. They had not
found the Looe, but Ed had spotted a ship’s bell lying in
the deep crater of a coral head in another section of the
reef. They had left a yellow wooden buoy bobbing over
the spot while they returned to collect the air compressor,
a diving outfit and a crowbar.

Captain Budd and I watched through binoculars as
they returned to the reef. Soon Ed was overboard, his
bright-blue canvas vest just visible through the surface of
the water. Then all I could see was the rumps of the two
boys as they watched their father through the glass bot-
tom. Moments later the small boat leaned to the weight
of the bell as it was secured to a line. Ed’s head and shoul-
ders emerged from the water, and he pulled himself into
the boat.

Once the bell was aboard Eryholme, we examined it
closely. It was slightly coated with pastel-hued sediment
and sea growth. Coral had formed at the top, where an
iron pin thrust through the ring was imbedded in a piece
of black, moldering wood. Coral also encased the clapper,
which was of iron and much deteriorated. We let it dry
throughout the day, and then chipped off the protective
covering that evening after we had returned to our dock.

The first lettering to appear was, “Gloria AO 1751.”
We had expected the bell would prove to have come from
the Looe, but this date, seven years after the sinking of
the British man-of-war, established that it had been
aboard an unknown ship. Perhaps, we thought, we would
find the ship’s name on the bell. But when the lettering
had been completely uncovered, it read only, “Soli Deo
Gloria, AO 1751.”

We could only guess that the bell had come from a

34 Sea Diver

Spanish ship whose name, like that on the bell, was Soli
Deo Gloria, for many Spanish ships carried similar reli-
gious names. There was little likehood that we could trace
the identity of the vessel, for there are few available rec-
ords of early Spanish shipping. We planned to go back an-
other day to look for other indications of this mysterious
ship.

Close by the dock at Bill Thompson’s, where Ery-
holme was berthed, lay a heap of coral chunks which had
been raised from the wreck of the Looe the previous sum-
mer and dumped for future investigation. Most of them
bore reddish-brown stains, iron oxide from the cannon
balls which they contained.

One morning soon after our recovery of the bell,
Clayton was hammering out some of these cannon balls
from the pile. Occasionally he would dash aboard Ery-
holme to show me a handwrought nail, some grapeshot, a
bit of bone or some other evidence of the Looe’s wreckage
which he had found.

Finishing my housekeeping chores, I went out to
join him and sit in the sun. I picked up a chunk which
obviously contained two cannon balls and turned it over
casually. On the other side I noticed the dull gleam of
what appeared to be lead. There was something in this
piece besides cannon balls. I called to Ed, who was experi-
menting with an air hammer to be used underwater. He
turned the tool on the hunk of coral.

Two speedy cuts revealed a battered container. With
a few more rackety strokes he freed a small, much-
corroded teapot of dull metal. The rounded dome of the
cover fitted smoothly and perfectly into the coral. It came
out without a dent. The bottom, however, was crushed
flat. The handle and the knob on the cover were missing;
no doubt they were of bone or wood, long since disinte-

grated.

The Florida Keys 35

Later, after Ed had carefully straightened and re-
stored the teapot, he turned it over to Mendel Peterson,
who identified it as a rare pewter teapot of the Queen
Anne period. He was delighted to add both it and the
bronze bell to the growing marine-archeology collection
at the Smithsonian. Ed and I like to think that the little
teapot may very well have served Governor Clinton and
his family while they were crossing the Atlantic on the
Looe, en route to the governor’s new job in the Colonies.

For nearly six weeks one norther followed another,
and we were able to spend only three days diving, two of
them at Looe key, where the water outside the reef seemed
to clear more quickly. Only once were we able to dive ~
on the wreck at Delta shoal, and then we found the sandy
bottom so changed from these constant disturbances that
we spent the whole day searching for the cannon which
marked the wreck. There was no time left for exploration.

While Ed was busy equipping Eryholme and testing
the new gear, he was more or less indifferent to the
weather, but as day after day and week after week went
by, his patience began to wear thin. We could not even
spend our time cruising, for Eryholme, although a most
comfortable boat when tied up at the dock, was too long
and narrow to take to sea in rough weather. Not only did
she roll uncomfortably, but her great expanse of glassed-in
superstructure was dangerous in a big sea.

One morning while we lay at the dock, a strong wind
beating at us from the southeast, two men appeared, ask-
ing for Ed, and disappeared into the wheelhouse with
him. He introduced them to me, as they were taking their
departure nearly two hours later, as Howard (“Webby”)
Webb and Robby Robinson, professional salvagers from
Miami.

As they were disappearing down the dock, Ed said

36 Sea Diver

to me in half-concealed excitement, “How would you like
to go to the Bahamas?”

I was amazed; for if it was impossible to dive from
Eryholme close to the Florida keys, how did he expect to
take her across the Gulf Stream? And did he expect to
find the water any less rough once he got there?

But when he had told me the story behind his ques-
tion, I understood his enthusiasm.

The two men claimed to know positively of a wreck
on the north Bahama banks, laden with brass cannon.
There were at least fifteen cannon, perhaps many more,
buried beneath the sand. They had a lead on a Bahamian
who lived in West End, on Grand Bahama island, and
who, they were certain, could guide us to the location.

It sounded too good to be true.

Old iron cannon were important in point of historical
significance, and we had been happy to find them. If prop-
erly cared for, they possessed value for the collector. As
scrap, they were worth very little. It appalled us to think
of the hundreds of ancient guns which had been found by
salvagers in these Florida waters and melted down for
scrap during the war years. Not only because we grieved
for the loss of the cannon, but because their disappearance
also removed the only means of tracing the locations of
many ancient wrecks.

Unlike the perishable iron cannon, which were usu-
ally abandoned once they had gone to the bottom, brass
cannon were as highly prized several centuries ago as
they are today, and every effort was made to salvage them
at the time of their sinking. Consequently, today it is al-
most unheard of to find any on the Florida reefs. Not only
would these brass cannon in the Bahamas be very valu-
able to the salvagers as old brass; they would be the
choicest of finds for the Smithsonian collection as well as

The Florida Keys 37

for ourselves, for their finely worked, gleaming barrels
would be in as good condition today as when they had first
disappeared into the sea.

There was even the possibility—Ed scarcely dared
breathe it—that, if the brass cannon were of a certain
period, they might contain platinum, which, unrecognized
in the early days as a valuable metal, had often been used
as an alloy with copper.

No wonder our imaginations were fired!

Ed also showed me a chart of the keys on which the
two salvagers had indicated the locations of several piles
of cannon balls or ballast stone, and of other areas where
iron cannon had already been removed. These places were
all further up the keys in the vicinity of Key Largo.

The temptation was great. On a beautiful Sunday
morning in early March we left Marathon. There was
just a pleasant breeze blowing from the east, and we de-
cided the weather had at last given us a break. We in-
tended to make our way slowly up Hawk channel, which
leads between the keys and the line of outer reefs, inves-
tigating a few possible wreck sites on the way. The pre-
vious day Ed had reconnoitered this area from the air with
the Widgeon. He had found that, while the water was
murky off Marathon and north as far as Long key, from
there on it appeared clear. If only it were smooth enough,
we might be able to spot some of the wrecks.

We circled south under Seven Mile bridge and out
into Hawk channel, where we set our course to the east-
northeast. To our starboard was Sombrero light, guarding
what was left of the ivory wreck and its companion wreck,
from which had come the 1617 cannon. Not a thing could
be seen beneath the milky green waters. Ahead of us was
Washerwoman shoal, also marked on our chart as a spot
where ancient cannon had been removed during World
War II.

38 Sea Diver

We passed Key Vaca and a string of other keys be-
fore coming in sight of Long Key bridge. There we com-
menced to see clearer water ahead. Opposite Matecumbe
it was possible to make out the bottom fifteen feet below.
About then, the wind, which had been blowing gently in
from the sea, began to freshen, and light waves broke
against our bow.

Ahead of us was the light that marked Hen and
Chickens reef. In its vicinity, we had reason to believe,
lay the wreckage of several ships from a Spanish silver
fleet, which had gone down in the hurricane of 1733. Also
in this same area, we had been told, was a pile of cannon
balls lying on the sandy bottom in plain sight. It was here
we hoped to make our first find.

Several fishing boats were making their slow way
around the reef as we approached, but we found as we
got nearer that the water so close to shore was too riley
for us to distinguish the bottom. We changed course to-
ward the open sea and, bucking ever-increasing waves,
headed Eryholme toward a marker on a reef several miles
out, which bordered the Gulf Stream. The cannon balls
had been seen in a patch of white sand about a quarter
mile inside the reef. We cruised near the reef and dropped
the hook.

' Ed and Captain Budd lowered the glass-bottomed
boat—not without considerable trouble, due to the rough
seas—and we started out. Ed ran the outboard and I
stretched full length in the bottom of the boat, gazing
through the glass. We bounced and cavorted over the
waves. Every now and then the bow of the boat would
come completely out of water, and then slap down upon a
new wave with such a bang that I expected the Plexiglas
bottom to splinter any moment beneath me.

Back and forth we plowed, from the reef to Eryholme
and back again, each time steering for a different section

The Florida Keys 39

and checking every little dark patch we could see against
the white sand. But because our boat was set so low in
the water, and because of the roughness of the waves, little
could be seen except directly through the glass bottom.
There I saw only wave-marked sand, patches of sparse
sea grass, and, scattered over the sand at intervals, a sprin-
kling of small starfish. There was no coral, no shells, and I
never saw a fish.

At last we gave up in despair. We would have to wait
for calmer weather. We went back to Eryholme and
headed her for the anchorage off Tavernier, a few miles
away. There we spent the next two days tied up to a
sunken barge in the middle of the shallow harbor while
the wind howled in from the sea. Near us was tied Re-
triever, the battered workboat owned by our recent vis-
itors, the salvagers Robby and Webby. It was half loaded
with rusty iron girders which they had dived up from a
sunken freighter at the edge of the Gulf Stream.

Our two days of idleness were memorable for long
talk sessions with the two wreckers. We covered a multi-
tude of subjects—the lore of underwater diving, various
techniques for raising material from the bottom, for dyna-
miting and torch-burning under water, for frightening off
barracuda when they became too thick and too curious,
and for spotting wrecks from the surface.

But always the talk returned to the brass cannon on
the banks of the north Bahama islands. If we would take
Webby there aboard Eryholme to locate the cannon, they
promised, Robby would then bring the salvage boat, with
its heavy lifting equipment, to raise the cannon and trans-
port them. We would take our share of the venture in
brass cannon. At last it was agreed. We were to leave the
following Monday from Fort Lauderdale for West End
on Grand Bahama island. How we were to outwit our con-

40 Sea Diver

stant adversary, the wind, we did not figure. We could
only hope.

As we pulled away from Retriever the next morning
on our way to Fort Lauderdale, Ed shouted to Robby
above the sound of the wind, “Have that junk boat ready
to pull up the brass cannon when we find them.” For
Robby planned to stay on the job at Tavernier until he
received a message from us to proceed to West End.

We had hoped to spend some time searching for two
wreck sites off Key Largo on our way north, but the steady
winds had made the seas too rough to spot anything on
the bottom. We cruised over the streak of pale water
which was White bank toward the outer reefs and the
lighthouse tower on the Elbow, several miles beyond. This
dangerous spot had received its name because here the
reefs angle out into an unexpectedly sharp bend, which,
in the days before navigational aids, was responsible for
many a wreck.

Recently, at a salvage dock in Miami, Ed had seen an
old anchor and some cannon which had been removed
from this location. Like Webby and Robby, these sal-
vagers had had no interest in what else might lie buried
in the sand and coral close to the cannon. They had merely
jerked up the guns and the anchor, leaving no visible evi-
dence to mark the spot. We were in hopes that the wash of
the heavy seas might have uncovered some other signs of
the wreck that would betray its location, but we found
the water too rough to do any searching in the small
boat.

Interestingly, some of the cannon found on this site
had borne markings similar to one found on the wreck at
Delta shoal—the insignia of a tower, mark of the Amster-
dam arsenal from which the Spanish purchased guns.
Could this ship have been one of the same Spanish fleet

The Florida Keys 41

which had scattered and sunk in the hurricane of 1733?
we wondered.

Discouraged and more than a little seasick from our
battle with the Gulf Stream, we finally headed for Angel-
fish creek, which cuts across the north end of Key Largo.
From there we followed the Inland Waterway to Fort
Lauderdale, loath to expose ourselves or Eryholme to
further bouts with the disturbed seas.

At last the morning arrived when we had planned to
leave for Grand Bahama island, eighty miles away. We did
not even have to go on deck to know that the wind was
still blowing strong, for Eryholme was rocking and tug-
ging at her lines against the dock. A check with the
weather man confirmed that it would be foolhardy to
start out. Instead, Ed decided we should continue up the
Inland Waterway to Palm Beach, which is almost directly
opposite West End, our goal in the Bahamas.

At midnight two days later we set out to cross the
Gulf Stream. Generally, both wind and sea are quieter at
night, and the weather man had at last forecast slackening
winds for the following day. With everything aboard well
secured, and the crew fortified with doses of Dramamine,
we left the shelter of the beaches and headed Eryholme
east into the the turbulent waves. I gladly followed Ed’s
orders to go to bed, for the three men could easily handle
the night watches.

They had already picked up Grand Bahama island
when Ed called me at six the next morning. To my sur-
prise, the wind had died completely. The surface of the
water was glassy as we felt our way through the shallow
channel leading into West End, on the inner side of the
island. Looking down through thirty feet of water, I had
the feeling that if I were to stick my finger in I would be
able to touch bottom.

The men started taking soundings at fifteen feet, sure

42 Sea Diver

that we were getting into water too shallow for our four-
foot draft. Conch and other shells could be seen scattered
over the bottom alongside large, fat starfish, very different
from those I had seen in the Florida keys.

We felt our way cautiously in to the dock at West
End. Now to find the man who would lead us to the brass
cannon. If only we could get to the cannon site before this
magic surface was broken up into rippling facets once
more.

Webby went ashore and soon came back to tell us
he had found his man. His name was Ceffy, and he owned
a small bar ashore. Ceffy had insisted upon bringing along
a companion. It would take about two hours for them to
make arrangements, and they would be aboard at eleven
thirty.

We waited impatiently. The glassy surface continued
to hold. There wasn’t even a stir of wind. I almost held
my breath for fear I would break the charm.

At last the two black men arrived. Clad in ragged
pants and undershirts and broken shoes, they were not
very prepossessing. Ceffy was tall, with angular features
and crooked yellow teeth. He talked in a peculiar singing
nasal tone which was quite difficult to understand. I later
found his speech to be typical of the island. His compan-
ion spoke scarcely at all.

We showed Ceffy our chart, asking him the approxi-
mate location of the cannon. The chart meant nothing to
him. He could neither read nor write. He explained
vaguely that the cannon lay somewhere north of us, across
the shallow banks and well in from the line of reefs
which mark their outer edge. Then he pointed to the
northeast, where, he said, lay Mangrove key. We found it
on our chart, thirty miles away, and set our course ac-
cordingly.

We were about to have our first lesson in bottom

The Florida Keys 43

navigation. For Ceffy, like most Bahamian fishermen, had
been brought up to find his way about the banks without
benefit of compass or other navigational aids. He knew
the approximate locations of the surrounding islands, even
though they were out of sight. He probably had a slight
knowledge of how to use the moon and a few of the stars,
gleaned from long nights at anchor on the native sloops.

But his chief means of finding his way was an un-
canny familiarity with bottom contours. He knew where
the sandy bottom had settled in wide windrows, where it
was shallow and where it was deep. He knew which sec-
tions of the banks had a grassy bottom, and where these
ended and the white sand began. When dark patches be-
neath the surface showed up ahead, he recognized them
for what they were, either coral heads or bottom vegeta-
tion. He could find his way from the barest indications
beneath the surface. This is possible only in certain areas
of the world like the Bahamas, where the banks are rela-
tively shallow and the water constantly clear.

It took us three hours to reach Mangrove cay, and
then Ceffy indicated that we were to alter our course to
slightly west of north. From here in, the course which
Captain Budd traced on our chart, as he followed Ceffy’s
directions, looked like a corkscrew. Twenty miles farther
on we changed course to east-northeast, while Ceffy, on
the bow, glued his eyes to the bottom, searching for the
edge of a certain bank. When he found it, we followed it
west-northwest for several miles, then veered off to the
southwest.

By this time the afternoon was well along, and the
calm water was breaking into ripples which constantly
became larger. No longer was it possible to see the marine
life below.

Ceffy explained that we must stay on this last course
until we reached the other side of the bank. We would

44 Sea Diver

find the cannon in deep water just beyond its edge, for
it was here that he and a group of turtle fishermen had
seen them, many years ago, near some caves formed by
the edge of the bank.

This was encouraging. Webby began to take sound-
ings. We were running in about two fathoms of water.
Gradually it increased to two and a half and then, just as
Ceffy had indicated, it dropped suddenly to four and a
half.

This must be it! I peered over the side as Webby
dropped the hook, half expecting to see the dull glow of
the brass cannon we had come so far to find. The water
was by now well covered with ripples, and the bottom
was no longer visible. In every direction, as far as the eye
could see, was an unbroken expanse of water. There
wasn‘ a cay or a reef in sight. Beneath our boat, as I well
knew, was a floor of white sand which stretched for
miles—no coral, no rocks, scarcely any grass.

What a place to find a wreck! It looked hopeless.
Nevertheless, having coming this far, it was no time to
quit.

As soon as the glass-bottomed boat could be launched,
Ed and Webby started out. They scoured the surrounding
area for some time, then came back and took Ceffy along.
It was getting dark by this time, and vision through the
glass bottom was poor. At last they returned to Eryholme
and dinner.

“Do you think we'll find them, Ceffy?” I inquired.

Ceffy looked vaguely across the water. “Oh, yassum,
dey’s got to be right here,” he singsonged. “I’se seen dos
barrels many times ‘longside de boat.”

We went to bed that night praying for a day of
glassy water. Then we would chart the water, drop buoys
for markers and systematically comb the surrounding area
with both Eryholme and the little boat.

The Florida Keys 45

But early the next morning I felt Eryholme start to
rock. The wind began its familiar song. When we arrived
on deck, there was quite a sea rolling. It was no use.

We ate breakfast and disconsolately started back to
West End. This time we took a direct compass course and
found that, instead of the sixty-eight miles of hen tracks
produced by Ceffy’s bottom navigation, our return course
was only twenty-eight miles long, leading us straight to
the dock.

If we had any thoughts of going back for further
search in that area, the wind’s reappearance soon changed
our minds. Eryholme remained tied up at the dock in
West End for nearly two weeks while the anemometer —
registered velocities of from eighteen to forty knots.
Webby finally left on the bi-weekly airplane to Palm
Beach, to resume the less exciting but more remunerative
business of diving up scrap iron in the keys. A few days
later Ed and I flew to Miami, leaving Captain Budd and a
Bahamian boatman to bring Eryholme back when the
winds should let up sufficiently.

This was only the beginning of our search for the
elusive brass cannon. We were to return many times in
the coming years to these same banks, always with new
clues. It was amazing how many different people had ac-
tually seen the heavy barrels, never twice in the same
place, but unvaryingly somewhere within the confines of
the northern banks.

46 Sea Diver

It was the second week of April. Eryholme
was anchored in the protection of Tavernier key, nearly
halfway down the Florida keys. It was more than a
month since we had set out to find the brass cannon on
the Bahama banks. There had been plenty of time to pore
over the old charts of the area which we had garnered.
Time also to read of the exciting years when pirates lurked
in every hidden cove; of French and English warships ly-
ing in wait to attack the stragglers of the silver fleets which
Spain persistently sent through the narrow Florida straits;
of the Indians who swarmed from the shores in their
canoes to seize the cargoes of ships stranded upon the
reefs; and of wreckers who gathered from the Bahamas
and Key West to make capital of the losses of unfortunate
shipowners.

This very spot where Eryholme was anchored had
sheltered many of these marauders. The nearby islands of
Tavernier and Rodriguez had been convenient landing
places for their men and loot. Ashore, where a long string

The Florida Keys 47

of buildings and countless neon signs now attested the
moder town of Tavernier, savage Caloosa Indians once
must have skulked, awaiting the unfortunate ship which
storm or battle might bring to their shores.

For many years after Columbus's discovery of Amer-
ica, these long, low keys fringing the lower coastline of
east Florida and continuing in a narrow chain to their
terminus at Dry Tortugas were known only to the Indians
who inhabited them, and to the unfortunate shipwreck
survivors who became their victims. This was because no
sailing ship dared venture very close to the dangerous line
of reefs several miles offshore at the edge of the Gulf
Stream. Eastward across the straits lay the Bahama is-
lands, a collection of low cays and shallow banks which
also warned off all shipping.

The Spanish did not at first realize the importance of
these narrow straits. Their early journeys from the Old
World had led them further south, to the environs of the
Caribbean, which was soon dotted with their cities and
fortifications and a network of sail paths set up between
settlements by the early navigators.

It was not long before they found that the return route
to Spain through the Straits of Florida was preferable, for
it made best use of the prevailing southeast trade winds,
as well as utilizing the aid of the powerful north-flowing
Gulf Stream. The alternate routes to the east, either
north of Hispaniola or diagonally through the channels
of the lower Bahama islands, were made difficult because
of almost constant winds from the east and southeast.

The Conquistadores had scarcely begun their explor-
ing and colonizing efforts in the vicinity of Florida before
the French began infiltrating into that area. Soon they
were harassing their enemies, the Spanish, in the narrow
confines of the straits. First French pirates and then French
Regular Navy vessels made raids on the heavily laden

48 Sea Diver

merchant ships of the Spaniards as they pursued their slow
way toward the homeland. Cargoes were filched, their
crews killed or made captive, and the ships confiscated.

It did not take long for the brigands of other nations
to discover the wealth to be gained by piracy on the
Spanish ships. In self-defense the Spanish formed their
merchant ships into organized convoys, protected by heav-
ily armed galleons. These gathered at appointed times in
the shelter of Havana harbor and then set out for Spain
under the protection of their escorts. Thus one hazard was
met.

But, as we have seen in the case of the Looe, the prob-
lem of successfully navigating the richly laden ships
through these narrow straits, bordered on either side by
coral reefs and shallow banks, was not so easily solved.
Each nation—in fact, each navigator—guarded his hand-
made charts as a jealous chef would guard his recipes.
There were no really accurate charts of these dangerous
waters for many centuries, and every voyage was fraught
with peril.

Even as late as 1763, Thomas Jefferys, geographer to
His Majesty the King of England, wrote, in An Account
of the First Discovery and Natural History of Florida:

The navigation upon the extreme parts of
Florida is remarkably dangerous, not only because
it is within the course of the tradewinds but because
the whole shore upon which the current for the
most part sets is particularly low, flat, broken
ground, and full nine leagues into the sea the water
is in many places quite shallow, excepting some
winding deep channels in several parts of it, which
are the causes of frequent ship wrecks; for when-
ever a ship falls into one of these channels, she very
rarely, if ever, gets clear of it; because, being de-
ceived by the deep soundings, and having unwarily

The Florida Keys 49

entered so far within the banks, there is no return-
ing by the same way, the vessel must inevitably be
lost.

Storms and hurricanes did not lessen the problems of
the navigator, for it was next to impossible to prevent the
clumsy square-riggers from being carried off their course
by heavy winds and currents, and there was no means of
ascertaining their position when out of sight of land. Con-
sequently, through the years, many of them never reached
their destination, but piled up on the Florida reefs instead.

What struck me as remarkable was that over the years
the Spanish did not seem to learn that hurricanes occur
only in the summer and fall months, nor did they schedule
their convoys to sail at other times of the year. Instead,
almost invariably, they sailed from Havana in the sum-
mer months, calmly inviting disaster.

By 1565 Pedro Menéndez, the Spanish explorer, had
driven the French out of northern Florida and had
founded St. Augustine to protect his country’s interests in
that area. Spain now had some control over the waters to
the north of the Florida straits.

Although the Florida Indians were always wary of the
Spaniards, Menéndez did succeed in making friends with
them by pretending to marry Dofia Antonia, the sister of
the Indian chief, Carlos. Throughout these early years this
liaison paid off, for the Spaniards were able to enlist the
aid of the natives in salvaging the wrecks along the coast
and in establishing a limited amount of barter between
Havana and the keys. But people of other nations were
always at the mercy of the Indians.

Seemingly the Spanish should have had complete
control of the Florida straits, for they had possession of
Florida, Cuba and the Bahama islands to the east. But be-
cause they were interested only in the quick riches to be ob-

50 Sea Diver

tained in Mexico and South America at that time, they
failed to secure their hold on the seemingly valueless
lands of Florida and the Bahamas by colonizing them.

They did not realize their mistake until it was too
late. Before their first century in the New World had
passed, the Spaniards had given up attempting to settle
the Florida peninsula, with the exception of St. Augustine
and its environs. And by the beginning of the seventeenth
century, the Bahamas had become a hiding place for the
enemy ships of other nations, as well as pirate ships, both
of which preyed upon Spanish shipping. From then on
her ships were forced to run the gantlet of the straits
without benefit of protection from either shore.

During these years, hundreds of ships, alone or in con-
voy, were destroyed on the reefs along the keys. When-
ever they foundered in such shallow water that they could
be reached from the surface, they were salvaged—not only
by the Spaniards, who hurried from Havana to reclaim their
property, but also by the Key Indians, who swarmed
from the shores in their dugout canoes. These Indians
were amazingly good skin divers, and anything of value
which they could reach by skillful and successive dives of
three to four minutes did not remain long on these
wrecks.

’ Whatever they left was later picked over by roust-
about pirate crews looking for salvage and, still later, by
wreckers from the Bahamas and Key West, whose liveli-
hood depended on what could be scrounged from the
misfortunes of passing ships.

It was apparent that there could not be much left
for the treasure seeker of the present day. Our greatest
hope was that, with modern diving paraphernalia, we
could stay down and work the wrecks an indefinite period
of time. With the additional advantage of up-to-date
salvage equipment and explosives, we would be able to

The Florida Keys 51

penetrate formerly inaccessible wreckage. But, were it
possible for us to locate them, our best opportunity
would still be in diving on wrecks which had gone down
in water so deep that they could not be reached at the
time of their sinking.

Tracing back the story of shipwreck and salvage in
those early centuries, I found records of fleet after fleet of
plate ships which had been caught in hurricanes and cast
up on these unfriendly shores. Early in the eighteenth cen-
tury, two entire fleets were destroyed by hurricanes along
the coast of Florida. The first large fleet met its end in the
summer of 1715, off Cape Canaveral in the vicinity of
Palm Beach. In 1733 a second plate fleet, under the com-
mand of Admiral Don Rodrigo de Torres, was lost, the
ships being scattered all up and down the reefs off the
Florida keys, from Key Largo to Key Vaca.

From his office in the Smithsonian, Mendel Peterson
had sent us an old chart detailing the names of the ships
under Admiral de Torres’s command and the approximate
locations where the original nineteen had foundered.
One account of the disaster noted, “With the help sent
from Havana the people were picked up, some silver was
saved and the fifteen ruined ships were burned.” * The
Spaniards made it a practice to burn whatever super-
structure remained above water once they had salvaged a
wreck, so that it would not be seen by any of their ene-
mies.

All up and down Los Martires, as the Spanish called
the keys, English ships and the ships of other nations also
found a watery grave. Today the names of many of the
reefs commemorate these early warships which were lost.

* Another account, which contradicted the above to some extent,
reported, “The ship La Florida of the fleet of don Rodrigo was ship-
wrecked on the shoals of Matecumbe. Fifty-five were drowned. Fourteen
more ships foundered, three of which capsized, disappearing beneath
the waves with all hands.”

52 Sea Diver

In 1695 the sixty-gun H.M.S. Winchester, return-
ing from a raid on Cap Haitien with two other ships, was
wrecked in a storm off Key Largo. Some years after, as we
already know, the H.M.S. Looe and the snow which ac-
companied her foundered on what is now Looe key, and
the brig Ledbury sank in a hurricane near Elliott key.
Ledbury reef is northeast of the key. In 1770 the Carysfort
was wrecked on what is now Carysfort reef; and in 1822
the U.S.S. Alligator, having pursued eight pirate vessels
and taken five of them, struck and sank on the reef now
marked by Alligator Reef light.

As late as 1850 there were only three aids to naviga-
tion in the Florida keys. Lighthouses were placed on Cape
Florida in 1827, and at Key West in 1823. A light boat,
which could not be depended on to be on its exact station,
marked Carysfort reef until 1852, when it was replaced by
a 110-foot lighthouse.

Even with these three markers, ships continued to
pile up on the reefs throughout the nineteenth century,
aided and abetted, it was said, by wreckers from the thriv-
ing island community of Key West, where Federal courts
had been established to administer the law of wreck and
salvage. These courts reached the peak of their activity
during the ten years from 1850 to 1860, when it is re-
corded that 499 vessels were salvaged.

By the time we had finished studying these accounts
and poring over copies of old English, Spanish, French
and Dutch maps which Pete had obtained for us from
the files of the Library of Congress, we were steaming
with impatience to continue our explorations. But still
the wind continued to blow.

We now realized that we were every bit as handi-
capped with Eryholme as we would have been with Blue
Heron, but for different reasons. Eryholme was not de-

The Florida Keys 53

signed to weather the heavy seas which we would be
called upon to face many times in the future, as we pur-
sued our explorations to the Bahamas and the Caribbean
islands. If we seriously intended to continue this historical
salvage, we must have more adequate equipment.

So I was not surprised when, at breakfast one windy
morning, Ed said, “Let’s take the bus up to Miami and
look at boats. Perhaps we can find a larger sailboat than
Blue Heron that would do the work for us. At least we
would have a ship we could go to sea in when the wind
is blowing. That’s more than we can do with this cockle-
shell.”

He was still thinking sails, for he had never been
won over to the lure of high-powered diesel cruisers. So,
later that morning, when we explained our problem to
our yacht broker in Miami, it was sailboats we asked to
see. We spent the day looking at sail, but none seemed to
meet our needs. Toward the end of the day we were
returning from inspecting a boat in Coconut Grove,
south of Miami, when our discouraged companion had a
hunch.

“There's a sixty-five-foot diesel trawler near here,” he
said dubiously. “The owner finished her up from a shrimp-
boat hull built at Miami Shipbuilding last year.”

We weren't at all impressed. We were looking for
sail. But we allowed ourselves to be driven to a nearby
dock where lay Sea Diver, then known as St. Christopher.

There she sat, solid and sturdy, all sixty-five feet of
her; she was eighteen feet in the beam, with a high,
straight bow that sloped steeply toward the aft deck. The
cabin was all shrimp boat. To this day, whenever I think
of her, I am reminded of the early Popeye cartoons, for
there wasn’t a straight line in her entire construction. The
deck sloped, the pilothouse curved, the window frames
were all angles, the door frames conformed to the sloping

54 Sea Diver

deck and roof, and everything inside had been constructed
accordingly.

But I didn’t see all this with my first look. I saw only
a typical shrimp boat, dressed up with an extra-tall mast
and radio antennae, a low cabin top on the aft deck, and
a deep, wide seat built across the fourteen-foot stern. She
was painted with a wide band of gray-blue around the
bulwarks, and the wooden deck was gray. The rest of her
was white.

We went aboard. She seemed tremendous after the
close quarters of Blue Heron, and the narrow beam of
Eryholme. The deckhouse was cut up into several small
cubicles in typical shrimp-boat fashion—a wheelhouse
forward; the captain’s quarters at center, furnished with a
small table, bunk and stool; an adjoining head; and a
small, badly arranged galley aft.

But there was a stainless-steel electric refrigerator,
and a small stainless-steel sink. In the wheelhouse there
were an automatic pilot; a very good seventy-five-watt,
ten-channel radio receiver and transmitter; and an RCA
radio direction finder, in addition to a large, clearly read-
able compass. I could see that there was also room to install
the myriad of other navigational aids and instruments
which were Ed’s delight.

* We walked forward up the sloping deck and found a
sturdy electric winch to haul the 150-pound anchor
and its hundred fathoms of chain. This immediately made
a hit with two sailboat people who were used to hauling
in the anchor with a hand winch. We could also see the
possibilities of the six-foot pulpit that extended high into
the air from the bow, wonderful for cruising in unknown
waters and for searching. This brought to Ed’s mind the
advantages of a crows-nest for this same purpose. He
examined the tall mast, considering the feasibility of in-
stalling one there.

The Florida Keys oo

At the rear of the deckhouse, where the heavy steel
mast towered upward, was a hatch to the engine room
and an electric hydraulic elevator designed to carry heavy
objects up from below. There was also a power winch
driven from the main engine, designed to handle the steel
boom attached to the mast and extending to the stern of
the boat. This was the customary shrimp-boat gear for
handling nets and catch. Heavy standing rigging sup-
ported the mast to port and starboard. Here was the per-
fect rig for hauling cannon off the ocean floor, or for
swinging overboard the heavy wooden boat which sat
upon the raised deck of the aft cabins.

We went down a wide, roomy ladder through the
companionway on the aft deck, to the place where the
shrimp hold would ordinarily be. We found ourselves
in a large master cabin, twelve-by-eighteen feet, fur-
nished with two bunks, a chest of drawers, writing desk
and dressing table. It opened forward into a passageway,
on either side of which was a smaller stateroom, and a
large head with a roomy shower stall and generous linen
locker. All three cabins had a great deal of locker space.
Aft of the master cabin was a lazaret with an amazing
amount of storage room, extending clear to the stern
planking.

A door opened from the passageway into a light,
spacious engine room in the heart of the ship. What an
engine! It was an eight-cylinder Caterpillar diesel rated
at 150 to 300 horsepower, and it filled the center of the
engine room. On either side were four large storage tanks
for fuel oil, with a total capacity of sixteen hundred
gallons. A large workbench, two sets of storage batteries,
small engines for various purposes, and a hot-water tank
filled the extra space.

Forward of the engine room we found the crew quar-
ters. These had been retained as in the original shrimp-

56 Sea Diver

boat design, with bunks for four men, an adjoining head
and a large locker. A steep ladder led upward to the for-
ward deck.

As we progressed through this capacious, well-
designed boat, I could feel a mounting sense of excite-
ment. A similar feeling transmitted itself to me from Ed.
Here was everything we needed for our purpose. It only
lacked the trim lines and billowing canvas of our favorite
sail.

After spending a tense, exciting evening weighing
the pros and cons of sail versus power, we went back the
next morning to take another look at the trawler. As I
had sensed it would, right from the beginning, the highly
practical, efficient shrimp boat with the Caterpillar diesel
won out. Within a matter of days we were the enthusiastic
owners of Sea Diver, renamed to symbolize her new
purpose.

Sea Diver spent the next two weeks in a shipyard in
Miami, undergoing some structural changes we felt neces-
sary to adapt the boat to our needs. The many little cut-up
rooms of the deck cabin were replaced by a single large,
airy room separated into three sections by four-foot-high
partitions—a pilothouse, a lounge with folding table and
two bunks, and a galley aft. This would allow the free
circulation of air so essential to operations in southern cli-
mates. It would also make it possible, when we were cruis-
ing short-handed, to combine the functions of wheel-
house, galley and lounge. It would be of particular value
at night, as one person could be on duty with the help of
the autopilot, while his relief slept nearby, ready to help
or take over if the occasion demanded.

The new cabin was paneled in natural pine. The
heavy plank table was flanked by two combination seat-
bunks covered with durable green nylon. A small ship
model on one wall and a glass-covered display case for

The Florida Keys 57

some of the more interesting objects which we had re-
covered from the ocean bottom lent atmosphere. Split-
bamboo shades covered the windows, shutting out the
hot sun rays but allowing air to pass through.

A metal crow’s-nest was added thirty-five feet up the
mast, with a welded-metal ladder leading to it. Lockers
were built along the starboard side of the deckhouse, for
storing the diving equipment. And davits were placed
astern, where the glass-bottomed boat could be carried
and dropped into the water at a moment's notice, in the
protection of the larger boat.

58 Sea Diver

Old King Neptune must have set out in
1952 with the avowed intention of discouraging us from
our purpose. Not only did the winds continue to blow
and the seas to churn up sand and powdered shell until
it was impossible to see the bottom, but on our very first
trip from the shipyard in Miami we fe a most unex-
pected accident.

_ We had no crew aboard, just another couple and our-
selves. We had been combing the waters within the reefs
off Key Largo, searching an area where we had been told
cannon had been seen on the bottom. Now it was nearly
noon, and we realized that, if we were to get to Marathon
that night, we would have to leave immediately. We could
make better time by cutting between the reefs and tak-
ing the outside route bordering the Gulf Stream than by
following the intricacies of Hawk channel, close to the
Keys.

Checking the chart, we found that we could safely
set a course through the reefs and out to sea by passing

The Florida Keys 59

just south of a red nun buoy “C,” which served to mark
the division between the Gulf Stream deeps outside and
the shallower waters behind the reefs. I took my turn at
the wheel while the others went below.

A half hour later, as Sea Diver approached the red
nun, I studied the chart to check our position, then disen-
gaged the automatic pilot and took hold of the wheel to
guide the boat past the marker. The chart showed a
depth of eighteen feet from Sea Diver's position south
of the marker to the deeper water outside the line of reefs.
I headed the boat in this direction about fifty feet from
the marker.

Suddenly Sea Diver was brought to a violent stop. We
had hit something so solid that I could feel the deck un-
der my feet assume an abrupt slant as the bow came out
of the water. I immediately threw the engine into neutral,
and as I leaned out of the door to see what we had hit,
large and small pieces of wood from the bottom of the boat
floated aft. Ed came running, and so did the others on
board.

Sea Diver had by now drifted off the obstruction,
and we were floating clear. From the bow we could just
make out the angular shape of some sort of submerged
metal framework, lying with its top about three feet be-
neath the surface.

We dropped anchor and Ed hurried below decks to
set the pumps going. When he returned to where we were
hanging over the starboard rail, attempting to make out
what we had hit, he reported that there were no signs
of damage inside the hull, as far as he could see, and that
the boat did not seem to be taking on an undue amount of
water.

He set the air compressor going and got into his div-
ing gear, for he wanted to have a look at the damage to
the outside of the hull. He had been overboard only a brief

60 Sea Diver

interval when he returned to the boarding ladder and asked
for a crowbar.

“There’s a lot of loose wood hanging from the worm-
shoe,” he said, “and some big bolts sticking out.”

He worked beneath the boat for some time, chiseling
off splinters of the hull, which bobbed to the surface and
floated off. When he had completed the job, he handed
up the crowbar and then swam toward the obstacle which
we had hit, now a hundred feet off our port bow.

We were relieved to hear, upon his return, that the
damage was apparently superficial. The heavy wood stem
had been stripped partially from the bow, and the keel
was gouged the whole length of the boat, but the hull it-
self seemed to be intact. We might expect some leakage
through sprung seams, he said, but otherwise it would be
safe for us to go on.

The obstruction which we had hit was an iron tripod
marker which had evidently been jettisoned in these
waters when the red nun was installed. Ed stormed at the
carelessness of a government agency that would install a
new marker without removing or destroying the old one,
or at least indicating the location on the official charts as
a hazard to navigation.

We decided then and there that our stained shrimp
boat, elegant or not, was really built to take it. She had
survived her first testing. However, as the days went by,
we found that she was taking on more than the normal
amount of water in her bilges, and we finally returned to
the shipyard in Miami to have her hauled. A new worm-
shoe and some paint and calking soon had her as good as
ever.

When we started forth again a few days later, we
had two worth-while additions aboard the Sea Diver. The
Bendix fathometer which Ed had ordered some time pre-
viously had been installed and was now ready to chart the

The Florida Keys 61

exact depths of the waters which we would traverse upon
our voyages, and be of aid when we were coming into
strange ports at night, or when approaching an unknown
shore. And we knew from previous experience on the shal-
low Bahama banks that, with no land in sight, the fathom-
eter would help us to fix our approximate location by
allowing us to compare actual water depths with those
marked on the chart.

This time we also had a competent new crew member
—Robby Robinson, the salvager, who had joined us to
assist with the diving and the deck work. Unfortunately,
during the stormy weather of the past month, he and
Webby had sunk their salvage boat, Retriever, upon one
of the reefs near Key Largo, where they had been work-
ing. It now reposed on the bottom, awaiting salvage in its
turn; and Robby, who had appeared at the shipyard one
day, had been easily talked into joining us.

The record of the following two months was one of
frustration and disappointment, spiced with just enough
success to keep us going. Day after day we met with high
winds and consequent murky water. In spite of a sea-
worthy boat, we still found ourselves tied up at docks or
anchored in the shelter of reefs and islands, for it was im-
possible to locate anything on the bottom as long as the
water around the reefs was so roiled.

It was particularly aggravating because, soon after
we had left the shipyard, Mendel Peterson and his wife
joined us for a two-week period. The Smithsonian curator,
who had kept us supplied all year with a constant bom-
bardment of charts and records, was as eager as we to
locate some of the old wrecks and to dive upon them. He
had great plans for developing the marine-archeology sec-
tion at the Smithsonian, which had had its inception the

62 Sea Diver

previous year with the discovery of the Looe and the other
wrecks near Marathon.

Together, he and Ed had worked out an arrangement
whereby, with Pete's knowledge and help, Sea Diver
would be used to search for and dive upon whatever
wrecks the two men might consider of historical value.
Pete planned to spend his vacations and as much addi-
tional time as was necessary collecting relics from these
discoveries, to augment those from the previous expedi-
tion, which had already created a tremendous interest
among the thousands who had viewed them in the ro-
tunda of the Smithsonian.

Actually, Pete was the complete answer to what all di-
rectors of modern museums are looking for. He was young
and enthusiastic, an inveterate collector of everything, but
especially interested in coins and old armament. His head
was packed with an impressive fund of historical facts and
figures, which he produced freely and easily upon demand.
In addition, we found him to be a willing and helpful
crew member and a most entertaining companion.

Nellie, his plump, pretty wife, a member of the staff
of the Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian,
where she spent her days classifying sea_life, made the
final perfect member of our crew, for in addition to her
other talents she liked to cook.

Two unsuccessful efforts to explore the reefs off Key
Largo in high winds proved the futility of trying to do
any searching until the seas calmed, so we headed Sea
Diver for Marathon and spent the next few days at Bill
Thompson’s dock, chafing at our ill luck. Pete and Ed were
indeed discouraged, for Pete's allotment of time was fast
dwindling away. Their spirits brightened, however, when
Ed received a phone call from a diving acquaintance, Jack

The Florida Keys 63

Brown. He had located some cannon on a reef off Key
West and wanted Ed to join him with our equipment.
Jack had only his “duck,” an amphibious trucklike vehicle,
relic of the war years, which he was using to work the
reefs, he said.

He explained that he had need of a few old cannon
barrels to add interest to an aquarium he was planning to
open in the keys. He did not know the vintage of the
wreck, but from the amount of coral on one of the cannon,
which could be seen on the bottom, it was a very old one.
He was not interested in the smaller artifacts that might
also be a part of the wreck, he said; once the cannon had
been raised, he was willing to turn over the remainder of
the salvage to us. He assured Ed that, although the wind
was strong in that vicinity, and the water was rough, it
was also clear, so that it was possible to work on the reefs.

That was enough to give new hope and enthusiasm to
Pete and Ed. We set out at the crack of dawn the next day,
rolling in the big waves which hit us broadside as we
paralleled the string of islands leading westward toward
Key West. By the time we arrived at the Gulf dock where
we planned to meet Jack, the wind had picked up to
twenty-five knots, and the sea was much too rough to think
of approaching the reefs that afternoon.

We had been in only a short time when Jack ap-
peared, with the news that he had raised and brought
ashore three cannon—a small swivel gun, a carronade
and a six-foot heavy barrel. He was eager to have Pete
identify them. He took the two men crosstown in his car
to the spot on the opposite shore where the “duck” was
based.

When Ed and Pete returned, they were quite excited
at the prospects. It appeared that Jack had located a Brit-
ish ship whose armament indicated that it was late eight-

64 Sea Diver

eenth century. Pete said that, oddly enough, the bore of
the large cannon went only partway through the barrel
and ended in a big air bubble. He figured that it must have
been carried as ballast on the ship after it had been re-
jected for other use, upon the discovery of the flaw in the
metal.

We were to meet Jack’s party and his “duck” at Sambo
reef, some six miles offshore from Key West, the following
morning. We found the water behind the reefs reasonably
calm so early in the day, but once we had rounded the
last buoy and turned east to follow the outer edge of the
reefs, we encountered a fairly rough sea. From the distant
shore we could see Jack’s “duck” making its way toward
the reef, and we slowed our approach, timing our arrival
to correspond with his in order to ascertain the exact loca-
tion of the wreck.

We were hardly settled, and Pete and Ed returned
from looking over the bottom, when Jack hailed us from
the “duck,” which was anchored a scant fifty feet away.
We would have to move Sea Diver, he informed us, for
he was going to set off a charge of dynamite to loosen the
visible cannon and cannon balls from the coral. This was
discouraging, but necessary, we realized, and after some
careful jockeying, Sea Diver was eased away from the
reef. We waited for the dynamite sticks to be placed.

When Ed saw the amount of dynamite Jack intended
to use, he was appalled. “Itll blow the whole wreck to
Kingdom come,” he said.

But Jack wanted to be sure of accomplishing the job.
We waited for the muffled boom of the underwater explo-
sion and the sharp, hard impact against the bottom of the
boat. Then we spent another hour returning Sea Diver to
her original position in waters now roiled and muddy
from the explosion. We might as well have skipped the

The Florida Keys 65

whole procedure, for when our boat was once more in
place, the men found the water still so murky that it was
impossible to distinguish anything below.

We gave up for the day, but hurried back at daybreak
the next morning to get Sea Diver placed before the wind
should come up. To our joy the surface was calm and the
water on the reef clear and transparent.

Robby was the first to go overboard. He had been
down only a few minutes when he appeared suddenly at
the foot of the ladder, pulling off the face mask as he
emerged. His face registered bewilderment and surprise.

“You should see what that dynamite has done,’ he
shouted in his excitement. “The reef is all on a slant, and
there’s a hole right through the bottom. I'd have disap-
peared completely out of sight if ’'d ever stepped into it.
There’s the strangest look to everything down there.”

He insisted that Ed put on the mask and go down. Ed
disappeared down the ladder. He was gone for a long
time, but when he came back his face wore the same be-
wilderment.

“You feel as if the whole bottom is topsy-turvy,” he
said. “It looks as if that explosion had turned the reef
right up on its side.”

By this time, Pete had hooked up another mask and
was hurrying over the side to have a look at this amazing
phenomenon. Ed followed him down.

Nellie and Robby and I waited impatiently for them
to reappear. When their two heads bobbed out of the
water once more, they could hardly wait to remove their
masks.

“What's wrong with things?” Pete queried. “There's
a huge pile of rubble down there, but I didn’t see any
steep cliffs or yawning chasms.”

Ed started to argue with him, then was struck with a
sudden thought.

66 Sea Diver

“Here, let me see that mask again,” he said. He picked
up the mask he had just removed and examined it care-
fully, holding it up to the light.

“Heres our trouble,” he exclaimed. “Look at the
plastic in this mask. It’s all warped out of shape. Some-
one’s left it in the sun.”

Jack and his party had arrived by this time, and the
“duck” was anchored near us. The men returned to the
bottom, where they helped rig tackle to the cannon which
had been freed by the blast, so that they could be raised
on the “duck.” By afternoon Jack was ready to set out for
shore, the overloaded duck listing heavily to port, stag-
gering through the big seas with its burden of three can-
non, a pile of heavy cannon balls and five people. We
watched its slow progress toward shore, fascinated, ex-
pecting any moment to see it swamped. To our relief, it
reached the quieter waters near shore without mishap.

We stayed to salvage what we could, hoping to find
some smaller objects which would give us further clues to
the identity of the wreck. At last I was able to secure a
mask and air hose long enough to go down for a look. The
bottom was indeed a shambles. Broken coral and rubble
lay in piles, punctuated with a scattering of cannon balls.
A large gun barrel lay in two pieces, broken apart by the
blast, and the mouth of a second cannon protruded from
a heap of coral, its muzzle showing black against the sur-
roundings, for the coral crust had been cracked away from
it by the concussion.

The three men worked the remainder of the afternoon
to free this cannon and bring it to the surface. It was quite
a different shape from the others, and when we finally had
it on deck and had removed the coral from its back, we
discovered that it bore the date of 1657. Pete said that the
barrel was Spanish.

Thus we learned that beneath the wreck of the Eng-

The Florida Keys 67

lish ship which had gone down nearly two hundred years
ago, lay the remains of a Spanish ship which had struck
this same dangerous reef at least a century earlier. We
later came to realize that this was not surprising, for
wherever reefs thrust themselves into the sea beyond their
fellows, or strong currents carry ships off their course, it
is not uncommon to find more than one wreck.

We went out to Sambo reef again the next morning,
hoping to bring up some of the smaller objects, although
Ed said that without some sort of dredging equipment to
move the rubble, there was little chance of finding much.

He and Robby went down with the metal detector.
They had not been working long when they surfaced,
complaining of headaches and nausea. It was an extremely
hot day, and we figured that the heat, plus fatigue from
the efforts of the past days, had combined to upset
them.

So while they stretched out on the shady side of the
deck, Pete put on one of the masks and, picking up the de-
tector, went down to continue the search. He was back in
a short time, also feeling sick.

With his return, all endeavor came to a halt. The
three men lay about the deck, wondering what had hap-
pened to them. When they had recovered sufficiently to
get the anchors aboard, we headed back to our dock in
Key West, where they spent the remainder of the day
resting quietly in their bunks. Their conclusion was that
the air compressor had picked up exhaust fumes from the
generator, and had pumped the poisonous air down
through the hoses into the face masks. No one had thought
of such a contingency when the portable compressor had
been set down in a sheltered part of the deck, where there
was no circulation of air to carry off the fumes. It was a
lesson none of us would forget.

68 Sea Diver

A few days later, Sea Diver was back at her dock in
Marathon. Pete and Nellie had left for home; and Ed,
Robby and J, with Bill and Ethel Thompson, were about
to start out on an exploring trip to the ivory wreck. As
soon as Robby had finished filling the two gasoline barrels
on top of the deckhouse, we would be ready to take off.

Ethel and I were chatting on the aft deck when we
heard a muffled shout forward. I looked up just in time to
see Robby tumble head first from the deckhouse roof. He
struck the outer rail as he fell and crumpled on the deck.
We rushed to him to find him grimacing with pain as he
tried unsuccessfully to rise. An hour later our unfortunate
helper was on his way to a hospital in Miami. Later that
day we learned that Robby had broken three ribs, close
to the spine, and would be laid up for some time. So,
minus our helper, we left Marathon that evening and
anchored behind Little Sister island, where we would be
only a short distance from the wreck site and could make
an early start the next morning.

We found the location without any difficulty, thanks
to Bill's knowledge of the bottom in this area. The two
men first made a thorough search of the now-familiar
spot with the metal detector. They had worked out quite
a system for their explorations, Ed swimming along with
the’ detector while Bill followed behind, marking each
spot that showed the presence of metal with a brick.
When they had thus charted many places, they started
uncovering them one by one, digging into the sand with
a crowbar, or if they suspected something fragile, scoop-
ing it out with their bare hands.

In the course of their survey they came across an
ivory tusk which had been overlooked the year before.
They also brought up the bronze shoulder plates from two
old muskets. All that could be found of the guns them-

The Florida Keys 69

selves were two blackened, hollow, cylindrical sticks of
coral sand, for the metal barrels of the guns had com-
pletely disintegrated due to the corrosive action of the salt
water over the years. The detector also led them to a brass
door lock and, surprisingly, nearby, a large, heavy key.

The second day, Bill climbed on deck from a trip to
the bottom, and after he had removed his face mask,
reached into his breast pocket and carefully brought forth
a small piece of coral. He showed it to Ethel and me
proudly.

“I'm pretty sure it’s something valuable—maybe a
piece of jewelry,” he said. “The metal detector picked it
up, and I dug it out from deep down in the sand with my
hands. After I discovered how small it was, I didn’t dare
use any digging tools.”

He placed it in a china cup from the galley and
poured acetic acid over it. This would dissolve the coral
composition covering it without damaging the object it-
self, he said. All through our lunch hour we eyed it curi-
ously. What would it prove to be?

By late afternoon, when we were on our way back to
Marathon, Bill could wait no longer to find out. Carefully
tapping at the coral with the handle of a screw driver, and
rubbing it with his fingers to loosen it, he finally succeeded
in uncovering the object which it enclosed.

To his chagrin and our unkind laughter, it turned out
to be the key of a Spam can, tightly wound with a strip
of tin, as it had come from the can. We thus learned that
under salutary conditions it does not take very long for
coral encrustation to form on a metal object underwater.

Indeed, Ed’s metal detector worked so successfully
that much of the time the men found themselves digging
beneath the sand only to uncover a variety of beer cans
discarded by thirsty fishermen as they trolled about the
reef in their boats. Unfortunately, there was no dial on

70 Sea Diver

39 Sco bed

the detector which would indicate “gold,” “silver,” “iron
or just “tin cans,” and it was imperative to examine each
separate indication for fear of missing something of value.

During the previous month, while Pete was with us,
he and Ed had been negotiating with the Navy to obtain
the loan of a magnetometer-gradiometer. This instrument
had been developed during World War II to aid in the de-
tection of wrecked ships and other equipment which had
gone to the bottom. It was a very sensitive device, with
much greater power than the metal detector we had been
using. The hand detector which Ed had contrived per-
formed only within a few feet of an object, whereas Ed
hoped this new instrument would pick up the presence of
wrecks on the bottom when towed on the surface of the
water behind Sea Diver.

The magnetometer finally arrived, a four-foot-long
cylindrical aluminum tube, larger at one end than at the
other. There was also an indicator box, its face dotted
with dials and switches. Ed and Bill spent several days
attempting to put it in adjustment. It was a very delicate
instrument, one which the Navy technicians had long ago
given up in despair, we learned later. No doubt that is
why they were so willing to let Ed experiment with it.
Had he known then what he knows so well today, he prob-
ably would have shipped it right back to them.

I should have no reason for complaint; I was only an
interested bystander. But of all the things that have tried
my patience throughout our years of diving, that magne-
tometer threatened it most.

In the first place, the weather was stifling hot that
summer. Without the magnetometer to delay us, we
would have been at sea, where, even though the tempera-
ture was high, the winds would have served to evaporate
the sticky perspiration which enveloped us constantly at
the dock. With the sun beating down upon her painted

The Florida Keys 71

decks, Sea Diver became unbearable. At night it was im-
possible for Ed and me to sleep in our bunks below decks;
yet when we moved to the wide seat on the aft deck, we
were soon driven below again by swarms of pesky mos-
quitoes. Often we slept on the floor of our cabin to catch
the least little stir of air.

The hot wind blew ceaselessly, now and then stepped
up by sudden squalls, sweeping in from the sea. Water-
spouts moved swiftly across the troubled surface of Florida
bay. One night a waterspout passed so close to Sea Diver
that every movable object upon her decks was carried off
into the harbor.

I welcomed the day when Ed at last proclaimed the |
magnetometer ready to be tested. With Bill and Ethel
accompanying us, we headed for the ivory wreck, and
soon had the long tubular instrument overboard, lashed to
the bottom of a rubber life raft. As we towed it around the
wreck area within cable length of Sea Diver, the boxlike
indicator on deck registered some very definite reactions.

Marking one of the spots where they had received an
indication, Ed and Bill dove upon it, and after digging
deep in the sand, came upon a cannon. It was a new loca-
tion, some distance from where we had worked before.
They decided to raise the cannon and disappeared under-
water with crowbars and hauling chain. Ethel and I went
overboard for a swim and watched them through our face
plates as they wrestled with their crowbars to free the
cannon from the sand.

We were back on deck when Ed came up to ask for
a hoe. While he was waiting at the foot of the boarding
ladder, Bill's head popped up beside him.

“What do you suppose it is?” he said to Ed as he
pulled the mask away from his face.

“Looks to me as if it might be a silver bar,” Ed replied.

“It’s certainly buried deep enough under that old can-

2, Sea Diver

non. Must be several hundred years old.” The two men
again disappeared beneath the surface, and their bubbles
trailed across the water toward the spot where they had
been digging.

Ethel and I looked at each other in great excitement.
Had they really come across some early treasure? Perhaps
the magnetometer was worth all the time and trouble.

A little later Bill came up again to see if we could
find him some gloves. His hands were raw and bleeding.

“We're having a devil of a time digging out that bar,”
he said. “But it looks promising.” His eyes beamed happily
at us as he sank once more beneath the surface.

Some time later, when both men appeared at the foot
of the ladder and handed up a metal bar, about 12 by 4
by 1% inches, into our waiting hands, we were as excited
as they. The bar was extremely heavy for its size and black
with corrosion. When Bill knocked off a quarter inch of
the crumbling outer layer from one side, a silver-gray
metal was revealed which appeared to be hand-hammered.
It gave a solid ring when struck.

The four of us examined it minutely, passing it from
hand to hand. Then Ed brought a magnet from the engine
room. With great ceremony he held it over the bar. It was
attracted to the magnet. Our hopes faded, for silver would
not respond to such a test. Soon after, the section of silvery
metal which was exposed to the air began to turn a red-
brown. Yes, it was iron, and it wasn’t very old.

The iron bar remained a puzzle for some time to come.
How had it arrived in the location where they had found
it, deep beneath a cannon which must have lain there
close to three hundred years? Some time later, Bill ascer-
tained that metal plates of similar size had been used in
the construction of the Overseas highway bridges. Per-
haps some fisherman had used the bar as an anchor for a
crawfish trap, and it had hooked under the cannon and

The Florida Keys 73

broken free from its line, gradually sinking into the sand
beneath it.

We spent the remainder of the month experimenting
with the magnetometer, which we now familiarly called
“Maggie.” When the weather allowed, we took our tem-
peramental partner out to sea, towing her both on the
surface and below, lashed to a thick wooden plank at the
end of a heavy line. However, there were many days when
our prima donna flatly refused to perform, and then Ed
and Bill worked patiently ashore to restore her to a more
co-operative attitude, while I sulked in the heat and
wished I had never seen her.

We made one final effort at Looe key, hoping, with
the aid of “Maggie,” to locate the remains of the Spanish
snow which had been wrecked the same night as the Brit-
ish Looe, and also the mysterious vessel from which had
come the bell marked “Soli Deo Gloria.” We wondered if
we might also come across other wrecks, for we knew that
Looe key had proved fatal to many ships in past centuries.

We arrived there just before dark on a calm, lovely
evening, and anchored behind the key, ready to search
the outside of the reef early the next day. But by morning
it was blowing hard, and breakers were rolling across the
reef from the sea. It was impossible to approach any closer
to the jagged coral with Sea Diver. By afternoon the wind
was even higher.

We waited over the second night, vainly hoping that
the next day would be better. Instead, the wind became
constantly stronger. On the afternoon of the second day
we headed back to Marathon through heavy rain squalls
and wind up to fifty knots. Back at Bill’s dock that night,
the wind held steady at fifty with squalls of even higher
velocity.

The weather man on our radio said this was hurri-
cane-breeding weather—high barometer, hot and sticky

74 Sea Diver

air, dull red sunsets and hundreds of squalls constantly
building up at sea. All that was needed was a circular
movement blowing into a low-pressure area to turn the
squalls into a full-fledged hurricane.

Fortunately the hurricane did not develop, but the
disturbed weather continued for the duration of our stay.
Sea Diver was finally put up for the rest of the season
without our getting another opportunity to go out to the
reefs. King Neptune had won the first bout in his battle
to protect his own. But we were not discouraged. We had
big plans for the coming year.

The Florida Keys 75

Shortly after our return to Florida in Feb-
ruary, 1953, we made our first dive on a wreck which, even
today, after several years of exploring, still stands out in
my mind as the most picturesque, the richest and most
interesting of all the old wrecks near the Florida keys
which it has been our privilege to investigate.

Although our efforts of the previous year had pro-
duced relatively little in actual articles recovered, or even
in wrecks discovered, we had added a great deal to our
knowledge. We felt that we now knew how to go about
locating the elusive remains of long-sunken ships. Once
having found them, we certainly had improved our tech-
niques of salvaging them. These things we had learned
mostly by trial and error, always an expensive procedure
in both time and equipment, but there were no textbooks
to enlighten us on the subject.

We had also learned enough about the weather to
realize that it is impossible to prognosticate what may be
expected. We had been harried with strong winds from

76 Sea Diver

start to finish during the previous year. Unpredictably, it
had blown just as hard in the usually calm late spring and
early summer months as in the winter.

Sea Diver had undergone considerable transformation
since we had left her in Miami, for in the brief weeks we
had used her following her purchase, we had discovered
the need of many additions for our comfort and conven-
ience. Rolling chocks had been installed on both sides of
the hull, for while the time-tested shrimp boat, with its
six-foot draft and rounded bottom, is a most seaworthy
design, it has, as we soon found out, a great tendency to
roll.

I was the proud custodian of a commodious stainless-
steel freezer, which had been placed just outside the gal-
ley door on the deck. It was encased in a plywood chest to
protect it from sun and weather. And, remembering our
discomfort during the extreme heat in Marathon the previ-
ous summer, Ed had had a number of ventilators and power-
operated fans installed, in addition to an air-conditioning
system in the aft cabins below decks. Now we could look
forward to a good night’s sleep no matter how hot the
weather.

These were the things of immediate interest to me.
Ed bragged that, with the addition of extra bilge pumps,
Sea Diver could now rid herself of 13,500 gallons of sea
water per hour. The three pumps now on board could be
started separately or run together. As he had also installed
a high-pressure jetting pump, which would pump six thou-
sand gallons per hour, to be used for moving sand on the
bottom, he felt that we were more than adequately pre-
pared against foundering at sea.

With the installation of three more water tanks, Sea
Diver now had a total capacity of thirteen hundred gal-
lons of fresh water. This would take care of all our needs
for long periods at sea, and even allow for shower baths

The Florida Keys 77

and quantities of fresh water to rinse the salt from our
diving equipment.

Ed had installed a loran, a long-range radio air-
navigation instrument developed during the war, in the
wheelhouse. Although it was used chiefly in airplanes at
that time, Ed figured it would be helpful in our searches
of waters beyond the sight of land, because with it we
would be able to pinpoint a spot and return to it within
very close limits. This instrument would augment the
Bendix fathometer installed the previous year.

The diving paraphernalia now included a twelve-
cubic-foot air compressor, its 120-pound capacity enabling
us to use air-driven tools either on board or underwater, as
well as providing ample air for three divers at one time.
Ed had put considerable thought into choosing and ar-
ranging his diving equipment so that it could be put into
operation quickly, with a minimum crew. The air hoses
had been wound on reels so that, after attaching the div-
ing mask, the diver could go overboard and without as-
sistance from the deck pull out any length of hose he
might require up to two hundred feet. He could reach a
still greater distance by connecting the hose from the
permanent reel on deck to a second reel on one of the
small boats, which could be anchored two hundred feet
from Sea Diver. This reel, in turn, would allow two
divers to operate from it with air supplied from the first
hose. ;

Sea Diver now carried a pair of small, flat-bottomed
boats, sixteen by four feet, with a high freeboard. Each
boat was equipped with a two-foot-square glass panel for
underwater observation. The smaller of the two boats
nested perfectly inside the larger one when stored on deck,
and it was fully equipped with a diving reel, air tank and
reduction valve, so that with the addition of a compressor

78 Sea Diver

it would always be ready for use. The two boats could be
bolted together into a catamaran-type platform which
would be useful in shallow water or among shoals.

We now felt that we had in Sea Diver a boat that we
could operate indefinitely, by ourselves if necessary, yet
one that would house comfortably a crew of as many as
ten, should more hands be needed. She was equipped to
take any weather and could cover two thousand miles
without replenishing either fuel or water supply. Further-
more, she could carry an extensive larder of fresh food
in her deep freeze and refrigerator.

With nearly every kind of navigational aid at our
command, we would always be able to ascertain our exact
position. We could depend on Sea Diver’s powerful radio
equipment to keep us in touch with the world ashore.
With her complete and versatile power and diving gear,
she was ready for any job that might appear. With the
many conveniences of her living quarters, we would al-
ways be comfortable, no matter what the temperature or
the length of time at sea.

In short, we felt that we now had the perfect boat for
our purpose.

Earlier that winter of 1953, in Binghamton, with the
snow flying outside the windows of our home, we had
studied the meager records which Pete had been able to
ferret out of the destruction of various Spanish treasure
fleets in the environs of the Florida keys. One account in
particular caught our fancy—that of the silver fleet of
1733, under Rear Admiral Don Rodrigo de Torres, which
was overtaken by a hurricane soon after it left its rendez-
vous point in Havana harbor.

As I studied the ancient chart showing the approxi-
mate locations of the fifteen ships which were lost, my im-

The Florida Keys 79

agination caught at the drama of that terrifying holocaust
of wind and storm as it attacked the doomed flotilla. In
my mind [I pictured the sequence of events which must
have occurred starting that hot, still summer morning in

July.

An orange-red sunrise spread itself across the eastern
sky, reflected in shades of palest peach in the transparent
waters of Havana harbor. From the grim stone bastions of
Morro Castle overlooking the entrance to the port issued
a series of heavy cannon blasts in long and continuous
salute, startling the eager crowds which had gathered on
the opposite shore to watch the silver fleet of Rear Ad-
miral don Rodrigo de Torres begin its long, hazardous
journey back to Spain.

Led by the admiral’s galleon and squired by three
additional two-decker warships bristling with guns, the
remaining fifteen heavily laden merchant ships maneu-
vered awkwardly in the fitful breezes of early morning to
take the places assigned to them. One by one, as they
reached the harbor mouth, they broke out full sails to
take every advantage of the increasing breezes from the
southwest.

Many hours later, the patient watchers on the shore
could still discern the flotilla on the far horizon, making its
slow way toward the Bahama canal to the north. With that
distant fleet went the hopes and prayers of all Havana, as
well as those of the scattered Spanish colonists; for close
family ties bound those left behind to the nearly three
thousand souls aboard; and many were the fortunes that
would be won or lost, depending on the safe passage of
the convoy.

There was a special urgency to their prayers that year
of 1733, for the silver fleet bore one of the richest treasures
which had ever been sent off to Spain, and its successful

80 Sea Diver

arrival was depended upon to recoup many of the disas-
trous losses of the past two decades.

Beginning with the destruction of the plate fleet in
1715, when the entire company of ships was swept aground
on the Florida coast by a hurricane, the bad luck of the
Spanish had continued. No sooner had they contrived to
salvage some of the precious cargo from those of the
wrecked ships which were accessible, than that wicked
Englishman, Henry Jennings, commanding a crew of three
hundred men and three ships out of Jamaica, swooped
down upon the Spanish salvagers and made off with more
than three hundred thousand pieces of eight.

In 1730, a terrifying earthquake had shaken Chile and
brought down the cities of Santiago and Concepcidn in
ruins. That same year, a hurricane sweeping across Ma-
tanzas province and the plantations of Cuba had com-
pletely destroyed the homes and crops in its path. But
worst of all, it had caused the shipwreck of the frigate
Genovesa, on which the fortunes of the mainland were
being shipped to Spain. The wreckage of the galleon had
later been found on the shoals off Vibora in the Florida
keys.

But now at last the fleet of 1733 was on its way, and
the admiral’s navigators nodded with approval as the
strengthening southwest winds carried the clumsy square-
riggers on a course which would lead them safely past the
treacherous Cay Sal banks to the northeast, and well away
from the even more dangerous reefs along the Florida
keys on the western side of the Bahama canal.

But their joy was premature, for unfortunately the
wind did not hold in the southwest. As the day advanced,
it went quickly past the west and into the northwest. By
evening, increasingly strong northwest winds were carry-
ing the ships much too close to the Cay Sal banks for
safety.

The Florida Keys 81

Finally, as the wind, blowing ever more vigorously,
moved on into the north, Admiral de Torres was forced to
order a change of course to the west. The fleet must of
necessity keep under way, for there was no anchorage to
be found in the deep waters of the Gulf Stream.

All that stormy night, with shortened sail, the fleet
pointed west, the navigators making every effort to chart
their unorthodox course, greatly disturbed lest they strike
the Florida reefs. As dawn broke, their anxiety was some-
what relieved. The now gale-force winds had swept to the
southeast, and with this change the fleet was able to point
more and more to the northeast. There was still time to
escape—by a narrow margin—the long line of reefs which
fringed the far edge of the Gulf Stream.

But as the day advanced, ships’ officers conferred in
worried groups, and the passengers, confined to their
quarters, shrank in fear at the strength of the wind and
the ever-increasing waves, which were now mountains of
heavy green water topped with flying spray and foam.
Sails were reduced to the minimum. There was a constant
check of water depths, which unvaryingly showed no bot-
tom, for the fleet was still in hundreds of fathoms of water.
A sharp lookout was maintained for signs of land or
breakers.

Those concerned with the navigation of the fleet soon
realized that the relentless southeast winds and the in-
creased velocity of the Gulf Stream were carrying them
in the direction of the reefs against their will. To add to
the admiral’s troubles, it was becoming increasingly diff-
cult to hold the fleet together because of the large varia-
tion in the sailing speeds of the many types of ships.

Here and there a line gave. Sails blew out with stac-
cato reports. Some of the ships had already lost masts and
topsail rigging. On the galleons the gun crews worked
feverishly to fortify the lines which held the guns in their

§2 Sea Diver

places, for if ever one of these iron monsters broke loose
on the decks, there would be grave trouble.

The winds increased to hurricane strength. Admiral
de Torres, aboard the flagship, Rubi, which had been con-
stantly signaling its charges in an effort to keep them to-
gether, finally realized the impossibility of the task. He
ordered the ships still in his vicinity to make what way
they could to the east, and appointed a place of rendez-
vous farther up the coast when the storm should be over.

As dusk approached, the despairing admiral, through
driving rain and tossing seas, could make out only two of
his fleet of nineteen. Whatever lay ahead of the flotilla
that menacing night, there was nothing more that he
could do. Their fate was in the hands of the gods.

By morning the hurricane was ended, though strong
winds still flagged the tumultuous seas. The admiral, per-
haps by superior navigation and a manageable ship, more
probably by great good luck, had managed to keep Rubi
clear of the reefs. Driven far north by the storm, he set
out to seek the remains of his fleet. By midday he had
succeeded in rounding up three badly beaten merchant
ships. At his orders two of them limped off toward Havana
for help. With the third accompanying him, he set out to
learn the fate of the other fifteen.

As the Admiral sailed Rubi south along the line of
reefs, a short distance below Tavernier island he was able
to make out the battered remains of five of the fleet, scat-
tered inshore. As he sailed closer, he was startled to see
that the nearest ship, now lying on her side well beyond
the line of foaming reefs, was E] Capitana, no longer the
proud galleon that had so recently started out from Ha-
vana in gleaming splendor.

Unable to approach any closer to the stricken vessels
until the seas had calmed, Rubi continued her sad tour of
inspection toward the southwest. As she sailed past the

The Florida Keys 83

mass of rocks now known as Alligator reef, four more bat-
tered merchantmen could be seen in the shallower water,
well in toward shore. Ahead, just off Viper key, the ad-
miral was shocked to come across the barest indication
of a sunken galleon, the Almirante, her broken masts pro-
truding just above the surface of the water.

By the next morning the wind had subsided, and
the sea was slowly resuming a more normal look. From his
overnight anchorage off Viper key to the lower end of Key
Vaca, the admiral counted four more wrecks. At the far
end of Vaca he came upon a third galleon, which had been
delegated to bring up the rear of the merchant fleet. She
was well aground on an outside shoal. But this time
signs of activity could be discerned aboard. As Rubi ap-
proached, those on board could see that the hull of the
ship was whole and seemed to be riding fairly high in the
water.

The admiral gave orders to bring Rubi about, and a
way was carefully sounded in to an anchorage near the
stranded galleon. The merchantman, still following, an-
chored close by. A longboat was launched, and soon the
captain of the stricken ship was aboard Rubi.

The galleon was stuck fast on the shoal, he reported,
but still in floatable condition. Fortunately she had not
struck on a coral reef, where disaster would have been
almost certain. By manning the pumps, the captain was
confident he could get her to Havana if only she could
be moved from the bar. Now, with Rubi’s help, this might
be possible. How fortunate if they could save her and her
cargo of treasure.

The two officers concluded that it would be necessary
to get rid of her cannon before attempting to kedge her
off the shoal. So all through that night, while the stars
twinkled in a calm, clear sky above, and the waters of the
Gulf Stream flowed more and more placidly on their way

84 Sea Diver

north, the crews of the two ships struggled and sweated
and strained to jettison the seventy-odd cannon, each one
of which weighed from one to two and a half tons. An-
other portion of the crew worked feverishly from the
smaller boats, setting anchors to seaward, their lines at-
tached to the windlasses of the stranded ship, to assist
in kedging her off as her load was lightened.

By morning more than seventy cannon lay on the bot-
tom of the sea in two heaps, one to port and the other to
starboard of the ship; lay there in piles like matchsticks,
vaguely discernible from the deck in the murky waters be-
low. It seemed a heavy sacrifice, but if the ship could be
saved it was well worth it.

It was nearly sunset when at last the galleon floated
free once more. Although leaking badly, she was able to
get under way toward Havana, leaving behind on the
ocean floor to mark the place of her near destruction
only two useless masses of cannon barrels and a scattering
of ammunition.

Could these be the same two piles of armament which
Bill Thompson had come upon in recent years on the
sandy bottom of Delta shoal? Was this why, after many
forays upon the spot to find other evidences of the wreck-
age of a ship, we had never come upon a single artifact
other than cannon barrels and ammunition? Although it
seemed quite likely, we realized that, without other ob-
jects to identify the ship, we would never know.

Now, more than two hundred years later, Ed and I
hoped to find the locations of some of the wrecked silver
fleet. Aboard Sea Diver, highly prized and closely
guarded, were two modern charts of the Florida keys, the
first from Fowey rocks to Alligator reef, the second from
Alligator reef to Sombrero key. On these charts we had
marked the approximate locations of fifteen of the plate

The Florida Keys 85

fleet as they had been charted by a Spanish navigator who
had visited the area a few years after the disaster, when
many of the hulls could still be distinguished beneath the
water. They were scattered from the Martires rocks off
Key Largo to Key Vaca. We had also noted on the same
charts the known locations of cannon and ballast which
had been seen upon the bottom in recent years. This in-
formation we had gleaned from many sources.

The most promising area, where both ancient and
modern indications overlapped, was in the vicinity of the
reefs east of Hen and Chickens light, near Plantation key,
where we had attempted searches many times before, only
to be driven off by rough seas and murky water. Here,
when the weather had become more amenable later in
the year, we hoped to return for a thorough search.

A new problem had arisen, however, since the previ-
ous year, when we had paid our first visit to the little
Museum of Sunken Treasure which Art McKee had es-
tablished on Plantation key.

We had become acquainted with Art on our initial
diving venture out of Marathon. He was the only profes-
sional diver in the party, and I had been very much im-
pressed by the heavy diving equipment which he wore
and his evident familiarity with the bottom. Ed, too, had
learned many valuable pointers on underwater salvage
from Art at that time.

The visit to his museum had proved most interesting.
In addition to two weighty silver bars, labeled mysteri-
ously as having been found “east of Key Largo,” we had
seen a huge anchor at least fifteen feet in height, rows of
ancient cannon, bar shot and cannon balls, a black iron
kettle as big as a bathtub, and many smaller artifacts
which Art said came from “his” wreck out on the reefs.

He told us in a confidential tone of voice that he
thought he had discovered a Spanish galleon. He was

86 Sea Diver

busily salvaging it from his boat, Treasure Princess, when-
ever he could find free time and the weather was co-
operative. He had invited us to spend some time diving
on the wreck with him when we returned in 1953. From
his description of its location, it appeared to be in the
most promising section of our chart. We felt almost cer-
tain it would prove to be one of the ships from the 1733
plate wreck.

Now we learned that Art had purchased a lease from
the state of Florida for exclusive search, diving and sal-
vage rights in an area reaching from Key Largo well south
of Hen and Chickens and extending seaward to the reefs.
The law had been passed the previous year, and he was
the first diver in the area to acquire such a permit. This
would effectively end what hopes we had of finding and
exploring any of the wrecks in this area. Art, however, re-
peated his invitation hospitably when he learned that we
were back in Miami.

Thus we found ourselves, one unexpectedly quiet
day in March, between trips to the Bahamas, rendezvous-
ing with Art and his Treasure Princess at Hen and Chick-
ens light. After an exchange of greetings from the decks
of the two boats, he indicated that we were to follow him
and headed seaward in the general direction of Crocker
reef. We fell in behind his boat, brimming with curiosity.
Sure enough, his course led us directly to the area which
we had searched so diligently from time to time for that
heap of ballast or cannon balls which had been described
by our various informants who had seen them there.

It was evident that Art was a frequent visitor to the
spot, for, although there were no visible signs to mark its
location, he headed confidently seaward. While his as-
sistant operated the boat, he took bearings on the shore
and distant Alligator light, finally directed the course
changed slightly to the left, brought Treasure Princess

The Florida Keys 87

about in a tight circle and dropped his hook. He signaled
for us to anchor nearby.

When our anchor was down and Sea Diver had
drifted to her natural position in relation to wind and tide,
we found ourselves side by side with the Treasure Prin-
cess.

Across the intervening water, Art called, “There’s the
galleon. You can see the ballast from your deck.”

Beneath the calm water created by the shelter of the
two boats was plainly evident a spreading heap of ballast
stone topped by an elongated object—a cannon.

We hurried into our diving gear and were soon on the
bottom. The first thing that caught my eye was a large
sign anchored many feet beneath the surface. “Private
property of Arthur J. McKee. Keep off.” Art had placed
it there to warn away skin divers who might poach on his
wreck or spear the numerous beautiful fish which
swarmed around it.

The wreck lay beyond the sign, a lengthy pile of coral
and ballast rock surrounded by depths of white sand.
The cannon which surmounted the ballast had been dug
from the sand and hoisted to the top of the wreck so that
it would be visible to sight-seers through the glass bottom
of the Treasure Princess. Near one end of the ballast was
a small section of timber which Art had uncovered with
his jetting hose. However, most of his finds, as he had al-
ready told us, came from the soft sand near the wreck.

Beneath these ruins, no doubt, reposed the jewel
coffers of great ladies, luxurious appointments from the
captain’s cabin, and unknown treasures which had gone
down in the baggage of the returning voyagers. Undoubt-
edly there had been quantities of gold and silver, too,
although it was doubtful how much had survived the
salvage operations which must have gone on for years

88 Sea Diver

while the hull was still more or less intact beneath the
water.

As the centuries passed and greedy teredo worms
chiseled the ancient beams until they broke into pieces
and were swept away by the sea, I could imagine the
contents of the upper cabins gradually sifting down
through the moldering timbers to lie atop the ballast
pile. Meanwhile the more prosaic furnishings aboard, pots
and pans, pottery and glass and china, must have settled
downward also, to be crumbled and broken beneath the
heavier wreckage of the ship.

Now all that remained visible was this pile of crusted
stones, resting on heavy broken timbers buried in sand.
And even these few timbers would have disappeared long
ago had they not been protected over the centuries by their
covering of sand.

Between the piles of rounded ballast stones, cemented
securely together through the years with a binding of coral
sand, were crevasses in which now lived huge black sea
urchins, spotted yellow and black morays and pinkish,
thick-fingered anemones. Over the ballast pile hovered
drifts of small silver bait fish, impelled first in one direction
and as suddenly in another by some unseen force; and at
my approach, myriads of bright-colored little fish darted
into their holes within.

Through the screen of milling fingerlings, at the far
side of the wreck, I could see the slower, more ponderous
movements of yard-long black groupers, which inhabited
the wreck-fashioned coral reef in numbers. Constantly in
evidence, like sentinels patrolling the wreck’s perimeter,
were a half dozen king mackerel, identifiable by the fine
black line which marked their white sides laterally.

After we had inspected the 150-foot length of the bal-
last heap, Ed returned topsides to get the metal detector.

The Florida Keys 89

Later, as he swam over the white-sand bottom beneath
our boarding ladder with the instrument extended before
him, the indicator hand kept up a mad jig. The bottom,
between Sea Diver and Treasure Princess, was seemingly
filled with metal objects. Yet when he applied it to the
sandy area on the far side of the pile of ballast, he was un-
able to secure any indications at all.

The galleon must have lain on its side and spilled its
contents in only one direction. The barren side was per-
haps close to where the ship’s bottom had reposed.

By the end of the brief afternoon, the two men poking
away at the coral-cemented ballast stone and the white
sand beneath it had recovered many interesting objects, for
this was the first time that a metal detector had been used
on the wreck. Ed was especially proud of a well-preserved
sword which he had unearthed at the edge of the ballast.
There were cannon balls galore.

Back on the deck of Sea Diver, as we headed once more
for Miami, we reviewed the events of the afternoon. After
checking the location of the wreck with our chart, we came
to the conclusion that we probably had been diving on
the remains of the galleon E] Capitana. If this were so, it
was one of the larger warships which had guarded the sil-
ver fleet. It had carried the general in charge of the expedi-
tion, according to the records, and most of the 225 persons
aboard, including the general, had been lost in the tempest.

If Art had really stumbled upon El Capitana, we real-
ized that this wreck should be unusually rich in findings,
for at that time the galleons generally carried the bulk
of the valuable gold and silver, while the smaller ships
were loaded mainly with bulky merchandise, ores, log-
wood, precious woods, cochineal and the like. Also, be-
cause the larger vessels were safer and more comfortable,
they were more apt to have had as passengers important
church and government officials and other well-to-do trav-

90 Sea Diver

elers, returning to the mother country. No doubt their per-
sonal baggage had contained many articles of value which
would have ended up on the bottom.

Working alone and with inadequate equipment, as he
had begun, it would take years for Art to make any appreci-
able progress with “his” wreck. We were delighted that he
had invited us to return in July to work with him.

During the summers of 1953 and 1954 we spent quite
a little time on Art’s galleon wreck. Mendel Peterson was
with us much of the time. That first summer we were able
to supplement Art’s equipment with an additional jetting
hose and the metal detector, which had proven so valuable.
Following the wavering needle of its indicator over the
white-sand bottom with the two jetting hoses, the men un-
covered, in addition to several cannons, a fascinating array
of old swords and battle axes, pewter and silver plates and
utensils, and small pieces of jewelry.

They also found scores of pieces of eight, all black and
corroded save those which had lain in contact with another
piece of metal. These were still solid, the full arms of Spain
on a crowned shield and the square cross showing dis-
tinctly after they had been cleaned and treated. The date
1732 was distinguishable on many of them.

Yet all the time they were uncovering these objects,
Ed and Art had a stricken feeling that the jetting hoses
were driving far more relics than they were salvaging
deeper into the seemingly bottomless bed of sand. It
seemed that almost as fast as the streams of water washed
the sand away from an object, the sand at the sides of the
hole thus formed would slowly but inexorably creep back
until, by the time the operator had finished, there was very
little trace of his efforts. The divers could go on forever in
this way without ever reaching many of the valuables
which must be there.

The Florida Keys 91

What they needed, Ed said, was an air lift. Then they
could suck the sand up to the surface through a big pipe
and redeposit it at a safe distance from the scene of opera-
tions. With this device they could successfully remove the
sand from around the wreck and at the same time uncover
whatever objects were buried there. If they put a screen
across the mouth of the pipe, it would prevent it from clog-
ging and also keep any object but the smallest from being
carried away. These small pieces could be salvaged as they
emerged from the far end.

But wouldn't it take a very special piece of equipment
to operate such a contrivance, I asked?

Yes, Ed said, it would take a powerful compressor to
do the job. There was room for one in the lazaret of Sea
Diver, and he intended to have one installed before we re-
turned the following year. :

I loved to watch the men at work on hs wreck as I
floated by the hour on the surface above them, a face mask
covering my eyes and nose. I became so engrossed at times
that I would suddenly find myself in the very uncom-
fortable situation of being completely out of air. Frequent
experience of this sort of thing finally trained me to long in-
tervals of holding my breath, for I would almost rather have
strangled than turn my head for a gulp of air just as some
fascinating object was being uncovered down below.

Occasionally my view would be obscured by one of the
great columns of bubbles which rose obliquely from the
masks of the divers beneath me, causing my skin to prickle
wherever the little pockets of air burst against it. And
often the clouds of sediment stirred up by the jetting hoses
blotted out the entire scene from my sight if the tidal cur-
rents were not moving swiftly enough to carry it away.

While Pete and Ed, in Desco face masks and swim
trunks, looked like ordinary mortals on the bottom, Art, in
his heavy iron helmet and long-sleeved black sweater, ap-

92 Sea Diver

peared to be a man from another world. While the others
swam here and there and worked most of the time in a
horizontal position, Art strode upright about the bottom,
his muscular body supporting the grotesque, formidable-
looking metal head covering, which emitted spasmodic
clouds of bubbles; or he knelt over his labors, unable to tilt
his body beyond a certain degree.

Ever since Art had begun diving as a sandhog in his
native New Jersey many years before, he had used a helmet
and the heavy diving equipment that went with it. Now
he conceded to these warmer southern waters only to the
extent of omitting the bulky waterproof suit and lead shoes,
but he still clung to the helmet. It gave him lots more air,
he said, and furthermore he was used to it.

I was constantly amused at the almost daily under-
water comedy staged by a huge pinkish hog snapper which
the divers had adopted as their mascot. This friendly deni-
zen of the wreck could be seen whenever the men were at
work, hovering like an affectionate puppy close beside
them, and waiting to devour the tasty tidbits which the
jetting hoses dislodged from the sand and coral. Behind
him, more timid but just as hungry, hovered his two
devoted wives, slightly smaller than their lord and mas-
ter.

‘Occasionally one of the divers would interrupt his
work long enough to clutch at a wriggling worm uncovered
by the jet stream. He would hardly have time to extend it
toward the waiting snapper before it disappeared down
that lordly sultan’s throat. One wondered when the patient
retinue behind him fed, for they never presumed to snatch
an offering as long as their mate was around.

One day as I watched, while Ed manipulated the
jetting hose and Pete and Art pawed among the rubble at
its mouth as the sand melted away before its attack, there
was a sudden gleam of gold. All three dove at it at once,

The Florida Keys 93

but Pete managed to fasten his fingers upon it. It was a
heavy, tear-shaped glob of the metal.

We examined it closely when they brought it to the
surface. What could it be?

Pete had the answer. “Tll bet it’s a melted gold
doubloon,” he said. “It could have been melted when the
Spanish burned the superstructure of the ship after they
salvaged it.” As I turned it over in my palm, I could see
upon its back the impression of the wood which it had
lain against as it resolidified.

Later Pete was able to substantiate his supposition,
for the gold was of the same fineness and color, and
weighed almost exactly the same, as a gold doubloon of |
the 1730's. The slight difference in weight could be at-
tributed to the heating process it had gone through, he
explained.

I was delighted when the men decided to present
the gold piece to me to add to my charm bracelet, for
it was the first bit of gold we had ever found on the bot-
tom. Their only stipulation was that I must lend it to the
Smithsonian for an exhibit of underwater artifacts which
was being planned for the following summer.

As for the pieces of eight which were being turned
up almost every day, we found that those which were still
in good enough condition to be identified bore the dates
1731 or 1732. Pete, who is a coin collector in addition to
his many other interests, told us that coins of these dates
were very scarce and therefore of unusual value. This was
because practically the entire production of the Mexican
mints during these two years had been aboard the Spanish
fleet when it was destroyed, and consequently had never
gotten into circulation.

Also, he said, the same year that the disaster took
place, the mints discontinued producing the “cobs” which
had been the coin of the realm for many years, and replaced

94 Sea Diver

them with minted coins, the machinery for which had been
shipped to Mexico in 1732.

These new coins bore the well-known Pillars of Hercu-
les on one side and the laureated bust of the ruler on the
opposite. They later became known by collectors as “Pil-
lar dollars.” The divers found only a few of these on the
wreck, the bulk of the coins recovered being the cruder
“cobs.” They even found some rare pieces of four.

I inquired where the word “cob” had originated.

“It came from ‘cabo de barra,” Pete said, “which
means ‘cut from a bar. It was called a piece of eight be-
cause it possessed the equivalent value of eight reales.”

He told us that the melted gold doubloon which had
been found was probably also a “cob” rather than a milled
coin, for although before 1679 all gold from the New World
was shipped to Spain in bulk and minted there, from that
date until 1732, doubloons were struck in “cob” form in
Mexico. The new machinery of 1732 had made it possible
to issue the fine-appearing milled doubloons which are so
much more common today.

Ed later performed an interesting experiment which
satisfied him as to the scarcity of the 1732 pieces of eight.
Wherever he went in Europe or the United States, he
dropped in at coin collectors’ shops asking for Spanish
pieces of eight of that date. Never was he able to find any.
Several times he was told that if he would leave his name
and address, the dealer would attempt to get one for him.
He was warned that if any could be located, they would be
very costly. Ed did not need to worry. He never heard from
any of these dealers again.

When we returned to the keys in the summer of 1953,
we headed straight for Art McKee’s newly completed
Museum of Sunken Treasure, which he had designed to
house his rapidly multiplying underwater finds.

The Florida Keys 95

Mendel Peterson was with us again, as well as our
younger son, Clayton, who had turned into a very capable
diver for an eleven-year-old. We had not been able to
persuade his brother, Bill, to join us, for Bill was spending
the summer on a ranch in Wyoming, thus fulfilling some-
thing he had dreamed of all through his childhood.

We found the museum to be an impressive structure
of gray block simulating an early Spanish fort, with battle-
ments and towers. It was situated on the Overseas highway
on Plantation key, its sixty-five-foot tower overlooking both
the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. From its top, with the
aid of the telescope he had placed there, it was even possi-
ble for Art to police the site of his galleon wreck far out at
sea.

On the greensward inside the moat which surrounded
the museum, separating it from the road, Art had placed
the huge anchor which was one of the first things he had
raised from the sunken galleon. Overhead, from the bat-
tlements, fluttered the flags of all nations, and from the
tower high above waved a black-and-white Jolly Roger.

In the main display room of the fort we found an im-
posing array of artifacts from the Spanish plate ship and
from other wrecks which Art had worked. In the pic-
turesque courtyard behind the museum were displayed an-
chors, ballast rock, numerous cannon and cannon balls, and
all the larger objects which had been secured from wrecks
up and down the keys. There was even a replica of the
ocean floor, with a diver in full heavy-diving gear at work
upon a cleverly simulated wreck.

But the most interesting exhibit of all was housed in
a heavily constructed vault in the interior of the fort. Here
we found the accumulated results of Art’s long search for
treasure. On display were two of the three silver bars
which Art still insisted he had found “east of Key Largo.”
There were some fine examples of gold doubloons and

96 Sea Diver

pieces of eight, and a few pieces of gold jewelry, includ-
ing a pair of gold filigree earrings set with emeralds.

Reposing upon a black velvet cushion was a rare and
finely worked gold religious medallion, which had been
discovered on the galleon wreck only recently. According
to the legend, the medal had been struck in honor of the
canonization of the Peruvian Archbishop, Turibius, in 1726.
It seemed quite possible that it had been part of the bag-
gage of some high ecclesiastic aboard the plate ship when
it sank.

Out on the wreck the next day we found that Art, over
the past winter, had succeeded with much effort in uncov-
ering a great many more of the ship’s timbers. It was now
definite that she was lying on her side, for it was even possi-
ble to distinguish gun ports at points beneath the ballast
where the timbers had been exposed. Reposing, slightly
uncovered, in the sand were the four cannon which we
had located with the metal detector the previous summer.

Art was delighted to have us arrive with the air lift
which Ed had promised, for he was sure that with its help
we would be able to reach a great many more objects than
had been possible previously. He was also counting on the
help of Sea Diver's lifting equipment to move the heavy
cannon, once they were uncovered, to the top of the bal-
last pile, where they would be safe from the shifting bot-
tom sand, and where they could be viewed by Art’s patrons
on the glass-bottomed Treasure Princess.

The men spent the better part of the day in rigging the
new air-lift equipment. After joining the large sections of
galvanized pipe together on Sea Diver's deck, and connect-
ing a long section of heavy rubber hose to the air compres-
sor, which had been installed in the lazaret, the divers
maneuvered the long, gleaming pipe to the sea bottom in
the vicinity of the cannon. It was placed at an angle so

The Florida Keys 97

that, as the sand was sucked up, it would be deposited in
a location far removed from the wrecked ship.

The air lift worked like a charm. For the next few days
Ed, Art and Pete took turns guiding its greedy mouth into
the white sand which almost covered the four cannon. As
one diver held the long tube, the other two placed them-
selves where they could remove the hunks of coral, ballast
stones, and the occasional pieces of wreckage which were
revealed by the air lift.

Every now and then, just often enough to keep every-
one’s interest stimulated, a prize of worth would appear
—a pewter plate or goblet; a bronze mortar; a bent, black-
ened silver table fork or spoon; an occasional moldered |
piece of eight clinging to a cannon ball or to a bit of the
ship's metal rigging.

No man would ever have worked as hard as those three
for the mere purpose of making a living. They toiled hap-
pily, without ceasing, disappearing below as soon as it
was possible to make out their surroundings in the morn-
ing, continuing until the low slanting rays of the late-after-
noon sun forced them to quit.

While they concentrated on the area around the can-
non, Clayton and I placed ourselves on another section of
the ocean floor, where the debris which emerged from the
upper end of the pipe showered back into the water and
sank to the bottom. In addition to the sand, there was a
continuous rain of bits of pottery and glass, an occasional
coin or silver button, shells and bits of wood and stone.

By the end of the second day a huge hole had been
dredged about the base of the four cannon, which lay
cemented together with more than two hundred years’ en-
crustation of coral sand. They would have to be dynamited
apart before they could be moved. It would be a delicate
operation to set just the right charge that would loosen
them from one another, yet not damage their metal, which

98 Sea Diver

was undoubtedly weak from centuries of immersion in
salt water.

So next morning, with Sea Diver anchored directly
above the cannon, Ed and Art disappeared over the side
carrying a fuse attached to a roll of fine insulated wire, and
the necessary sticks of dynamite. As soon as they had
climbed back on deck, Sea Diver’s anchor chain rattled
through the guides as Pete allowed her to slip back a scant
fifty feet.

With a flashlight battery, Ed made contact with the
end of the coated wire. Almost instantly we felt a sharp
blow on the bottom of the boat as the concussion wave radi-
ated upward from the explosion. Just off the port bow there
was a slight disturbance on the surface of the water.

Sea Diver's winch whined as she was moved back to
her original position. A scattering of small fish floated on
the water surrounding her. As I looked over the side, I saw
hundreds more of the silvery minnows which ordinarily
hovered deep in the water over the wreck, darting crazily
about near the surface, the perfect pattern of their mass
drills completely disrupted.

As soon as the water had cleared a bit, Art and Ed
went overboard again, soon returning to report the com-
plete success of their effort. The four cannon, freed from
the bondage of centuries, now lay separate yet unharmed,
they said. The water below was still murky from the explo-
sion, and the bottom was littered with tiny fish. How-
ever, not one of the large groupers or snappers which in-
habited the wreck had been hurt, for, fortunately, the
two men had remembered to chase them away just before
coming up to set off the charge.

Clayton and I followed Art overboard to watch him
prepare the cannon for moving, while Ed stayed aboard
with Pete to operate the deck tackle. After Art had secured
a grappling hook and chain about each cannon and had

The Florida Keys 99

attached it to Sea Diver's boom, the men planned to raise
the barrels a few feet from the bottom and then to alter
the vessel's position sufficiently to swing the guns over the
top of the ballast pile. When Art considered that each one
had reached the correct position, he was to send Clayton
or me to the surface to signal the others to lower the boom
until each barrel was properly placed on the pile of rock.

It took a good while to transfer all four cannon. Mean-
while I lazed about on the bottom, making an occasional
trip to the surface with messages from Art, who was busily
rigging and placing them. Clayton was everywhere at once,
poking into the ballast pile, hovering over the cannon, dart-
ing to the surface to watch proceedings on deck and then
descending to swim playfully toward the circling fish.

Near me, Art’s lucite camera box, perched on its
weighted tripod, gleamed softly through the hazy water.
There was an answering gleam from the silver bodies of
the dead bait fish scattered upon the bottom as they re-
flected the penetrating rays of the afternoon sun.

Undaunted by being so rudely driven from their for-
mer haunts, the hog snappers had returned, poking their
ugly pink noses into the excavation, where Art labored over
the cannon. A huge sting ray, which had been napping
quietly in a nearby patch of grass, finally roused itself and
glided past me to inspect the proceedings. At the far end
of the ballast pile I could just make out the hovering black
shapes of the more timid groupers, which had fled the ex-
plosion.

As soon as the fourth cannon had been placed, Art and
I returned to Sea Diver’s deck, while Pete and Ed went
below to inspect the completed job.

When they reappeared a half hour later and were re-
moving their masks, I said, “Where’s Clayton? Isnt he
coming up, too?” for I suddenly realized he had been down
a very long time.

100 Sea Diver

I went to the rail and gave his air hose a few sharp tugs.
Nothing happened. After waiting a few moments, I took
hold of the hose again, and this time started to haul it in
hand over hand. My tactics finally brought a protesting
boy to the foot of the ladder.

“Oh, Mother, do I have to come up already?”

He was disgusted and spared no pains to show it as
he pulled himself up the ladder and removed his mask and
flippers.

Ed, who had been watching, suddenly exclaimed,
“Where is your belt? Didn’t you wear one?”

It developed that eleven-year-old Clayton had been
en the bottom for more than three hours without any
weights to help keep him down. It is hard to imagine the
amount of effort this required, unless one has tried it; for
human lungs, fortified with a generous supply of air from
the compressor, create a high degree of flotation in the
body. While Clayton had remained on the bottom with
no weights whatever, I had found it necessary to wear a
twenty-pound lead belt to permit me to stay down with-
out exertion. Needless to say, he was tired. But next day he
was his usual busy self, much to my relief, for such a long
and strenuous immersion at that depth could have had seri-
ous consequences.

Before leaving the wreck of the Spanish galleon to-
ward the end of July, Ed rigged the magnetometer behind
Sea Diver and carefully patrolled the area between the
wreckage of the unfortunate vessel and the outer reef,
where she must have first hit. Wherever there was the
slightest indication of the presence of metal, a yellow buoy
was placed. Later the men followed the course laid out by
the yellow buoys, tracing their path on the bottom with the
metal detector.

It was apparent, from the frequent indications of

The Florida Keys 101

metal which they found, that the ship must have dumped
part of her deck cargo on the outer reef, including the can-
non which had been salvaged earlier. She was then driven
by wind and sea, either on her side or listing heavily to one
side, to her present resting place, spilling stuff from the
decks all along her path.

The magnetometer was also used in adjacent areas,
where there was reason to think there might be other
wreckage. To their delight, the men came across two more
piles of ballast stone which showed signs of the presence of
metal. These they carefully charted for future search.

We have never been back. Since that summer Art
McKee has continued to salvage his wreck. Today he wears
a Scott mask instead of the heavy iron helmet which
formerly seemed a part of him, and uses the air lift, which
Ed left for him. He has continued to gather a fascinating
collection of artifacts for his Museum of Sunken Treasure.

During the next two years, our own quest for elusive
shipwrecks led us increasingly toward the Bahama islands,
to the east. What we found there so intrigued us that we
lost interest temporarily in the more familiar keys.

But in spite of the adventure and excitement that we
found while sailing the Bahamas and the adjacent Carib-
bean waters, where we explored and dove upon a goodly
number of reefs and banks, we have about come to the
conclusion that in these waters off the Florida keys, route
of the Spanish plate fleets and for centuries chief high-
way from the New World to Europe, there undoubtedly
still lie the greatest number of promising wrecks this
side of the Atlantic.

102 Sea Diver

Part
Two
The

Bahama

Islands —

j et is ‘ mi

Back in our sailing days with Blue Heron,
Ed and I had found the Bahamas to be the most delightful
of cruising grounds. From one-hundred-mile-long Andros
island to dozens of the palm-fringed, white-beached little
cays which dot the seventeen-thousand-square-mile area,
we had explored an endless succession of varied and fasci-
nating places. Nowhere else in this part of the world had
we found waters of such luscious hues. Nowhere else had
the beaches seemed so white, the skies so softly azure, yet
vibrant with the snowiest of cirrus or cumulus fluff. From
the northernmost point opposite central Florida to the
southernmost island closest to Hispaniola, a span of nearly
eight hundred miles, we learned that this archipelago con-
sists of some seven hundred islands and twenty-four hun-
dred cays.

As we sailed across the shallow banks which join most
of these islands, divided here and there by underwater
canyons as much as three miles in depth, we tried to con-
ceive what natural phenomenon had once shaken the earth

The Bahama Islands 105

to create this widespread archipelago in the vastness of
the early sea.

Skirting the outer shores of many of these islands and
fringing the edge of the banks, we found long necklaces of
dangerous coral which made the approach to the shores
they guarded a hazardous experience. In those days on
Blue Heron we took good care to maintain a safe distance
from their reaching talons.

It was here in the Bahama islands, on the outer shores
of an island the Indians called Guanahani, that Christopher
Columbus first set foot on the soil of the New World and
made the acquaintance of the Lucayans who inhabited it.
Although we had discussed visiting this historic area many —
times, it had somehow failed to become part of our itin-
erary. But at least it served to arouse our interest in the
early history of the Bahamas.

We found that not many years after Columbus's first
visit, the islands had been stripped of their Indian inhabit-
ants by the Spanish settlers on nearby Hispaniola. In al-
most no time the captive Indians had disappeared from
existence, victims of forced labor in the Spanish mines or of
strange and terrible diseases brought from Europe by the
white man.

For the next few centuries the Bahamas were inhab-
ited only by buccaneers and wreckers, for whom they
served as a remote and rewarding hideout. Close to the
outer edges of the archipelago these ruffians lay in wait to
pounce upon the heavily laden treasure ships that passed
or to salvage what they could from unfortunate vessels
carried up on the reefs.

In the fastnesses of secret inner harbors a succession
of pirates hid their marauding craft, safe from the occa-
sional gunboat which might be sent in pursuit. Thus for
many years the Bahama islands existed under no proper
law, a refuge for runaway slaves, wreckers, pirates and

106 Sea Diver

other unsavory characters. New Providence island, where
Nassau is situated, became the pirate headquarters.

Conditions finally became so intolerable that early in
the eighteenth century the British government sent a force
headed by Captain Woodes Rogers to establish order in
the islands and subdue the brigands. Rogers succeeded in
persuading them to lead a quieter life by hanging many
from the gallows. Those who did not take to the new order
soon left for more hospitable areas. It was not long after this
that the islands were settled by English colonists, later aug-
mented by American Tories who had fled the newly cre-
ated United States at the end of the Revolution.

Although agriculture and fishing were the accepted
way of making a living during those early days, the wreck-
ing trade also flourished. Gradually the string of reefs fring-
ing the seaward islands accumulated more than their
normal quota of wrecked ships, many of them victims of
the wreckers tricks. Wherever Ed and I sailed in the Ba-
hamas with Blue Heron, we heard tales of pirates and
wreckers, and booty which still lay on the bottom or was
hidden in secret places on land.

So when we later became enamored with fase and
the exciting prospects offered wherever coral reefs and
treacherous bars exist, our minds naturally turned to these
widespread Bahama banks and cays, where it seemed cer-
tain we would be able to locate many worth-while diving
prospects.

Our first attempt made with Eryholme in search of the
brass cannon on the north Bahama banks had ended in
failure. A number of Bahamians later told us similar stories
of brass cannon which had been seen lying on the sandy
bottom of these extensive, shallow banks; but whenever
we tried to pin down these tales as to exact location, we
learned only that the cannon were in the vicinity of the

Lily banks.

The Bahama Islands 107

So we had ceased to get very excited over the prospects
of finding the cannon until one day we picked up a copy of
an old chart that Mendel Peterson had sent us, labeled “A
description of the Bahama Banck,” which had originally
been drawn up in the mid-seventeenth century by a Mr.
Charles Salmon, under the command of a Captain Phips.

On the western border of the same banks we had
searched for the brass cannon, three wrecks had been
charted. They had most intriguing names: the “plate
wreck,” the “Genuees wreck” and the “copper wreck.” The
latitude of each was plainly indicated, and although the
map was rather crudely drawn, we found upon comparing
it with our present-day chart that whatever landmarks still
existed matched very well as to latitude. There was no
longitude given, for in those early days of sailing, the navi-
gator had no means of determining it while at sea.

We believed the plate wreck must have been part of
a Spanish treasure fleet. The Genuees wreck had perhaps
received its name because it contained gold from the west
coast of Africa, transformed by the British into guineas
for their trade; while the copper wreck, no doubt, had
carried a valuable load of that much-prized metal.

We soon discovered that the Captain Phips who had
caused this chart to be drawn and who had evidently lo-
cated and attempted to salvage these wrecks was the same
Captain Phips who, a few years later, wrested a treasure of
millions from a Spanish galleon which had been wrecked
on the Silver shoals earlier that same century. Ed and I had
often read and talked of the Silver shoals. What treasure
hunter has not? For the story of Captain Phips’s sudden ele-
vation to wealth and fame by his finding of the Spanish
plate wreck has lived to this day to spice and encourage
the plans of treasure seekers the world over.

Perhaps, then, this seventeenth-century chart held the

108 Sea Diver

clue to a similar discovery. If we could locate even one of
these three wrecks, perhaps we, too, would come upon
wealth untold. Or if these wrecks had already been thor-
oughly salvaged of their valuable cargo, we might yet find
a most complete collection of armament and artifacts rep-
resentative of that early century in the New World.

At the mention of armament, Ed said, “You don’t sup-
pose—? Could those brass cannon we were looking for
with Eryholme have come from one of these ships?”

It seemed very possible. Taking the latitudes from
Phips’s chart, Ed plotted out the position of the wrecks
near the edge of the banks. He found that both the copper
and the Genuees wrecks lined up exactly with particularly
dangerous shoal reefs along the western edge of the bank,
while the plate wreck appeared to be somewhere on Mat-
anilla shoal, which forms the curve of the bank to the north.
Here his theorizing came to an abrupt halt, for there was no
longitude given, and this wide shoal, curving off into Lily
bank, presented an area of miles which might contain the
wreck. This presented a most exciting possibility. Perhaps
the brass cannon we had sought were part of the plate
wreck, and perhaps Phips’s chart would furnish just the
clue we needed to locate the cannon.

So we decided to include a search of these northern
banks in the cruise to the Bahamas we were planning with
Jane and Barney Crile that summer of 1953. During two
trips which we had made to Nassau and the islands the
previous winter, we had garnered possibilities of many
likely wrecks. From these we had mapped out a summer
adventure which would take us across the banks in the
vicinity of the Berry islands to Cay Gorda at the eastern
end of Northwest Providence channel. Now we planned
to end our excursion with a search for the three wrecks
which Captain Phips had charted.

The Bahama Islands 109

It seemed scarcely possible that the solid-rock monu-
ment which reared itself like a small fortress from the water
on Sea Diver's starboard bow was the only terra firma to be
seen in any direction. Yet there it stood, alone in all that
vast expanse of ocean. This was Memory rock, designated
on Captain Phips’s chart as “the Rock”; the same rock
which our treasure-hunting predecessor had used as a key
to map the locations of the three wrecks we had come to
Hare) |)

We had left West End, on the tip of Grand Bahama
island, late that morning. Setting a course approximately
north-northwest, close to where the turquoise waters of
the shallow banks meet the deep blue of the Gulf Stream,
we had sailed past a few small cays and reefs which gradu-
ally dwindled, then disappeared entirely, leaving only the
contrasting color of the deeps and shallows to mark the
division between the banks and the deep water of the Ba-
hama canal.

There were six of us aboard—Jane and Barney, en-
thusiastic as always over this new underwater adventure;
Dick Burrows, part Spanish, part Indian, whom we had
picked up at Sandy Point earlier on our trip to guide us
to some wrecks with which he was familiar in the vicinity
of the Abacos; and Clayton, as much at home beneath the
water as in his own back yard.

Now, as we gazed at the rock, we planned our strategy.
According to Phips’s chart, the copper wreck lay a few
miles north of the Rock, well inside the outer edge of the
reef. Eight miles north of it, the Genuees ship had come
to grief. Another ten miles beyond, somewhere in the area
of Matanilla shoal, lay the plate wreck. Within the line of
reefs, our chart showed sufficiently deep water to allow Sea
Diver to pass, but we had not traveled these waters long
before we realized we must be constantly on the lookout
for numerous places where the sandy bottom had shal-

110 Sea Diver

lowed up, and for the occasional coral heads which might
appear.

It puzzled me how Ed expected to know when we
had reached the latitudes Captain Phips had indicated,
for once we had left the rock there was nothing to indi-
cate our position. I soon learned the answer, for Ed, hay-
ing assigned me to steer the boat while Dick Burrows
watched from the pulpit for any hazards ahead of us, sank
to his knees before the loran, his head covered with a dark
cloth to shut out the daylight, observing its intricate light-
ninglike patterns. Within these trappings, he was able
to pinpoint our exact latitude and longitude.

By the middle of the afternoon we had voyaged north
to the edge of Matanilla shoal and then back to the reef
which Ed had picked as the location of the copper wreck.
Far to the south, Memory rock was dimly visible on the
horizon. Although the day was nearly gone by the time we
had our anchor down, and the sea, even behind the reef,
was choppy from a brisk northwest wind, we could not re-
sist a brief exploratory trip in the glass-bottomed boat.

Jane, Barney, and I had hardly left Sea Diver before
we spotted on the bottom a large, coral-crusted anchor
and an attached section of chain. We relayed our dis-
covery to Ed on the deck of Sea Diver and then went on
our way, but without the excitement usually attendant
upon such a discovery, for we realized that the presence
of the chain marked it as a product of the past century.
Until that time only rope had been used for anchor cable.
A cruise along the outer edge of the reef for several miles
revealed nothing further, and, as the sea had become
rougher, we headed back to Sea Diver.

When Ed and I arrived on deck the next morning, we
found that the rest of the party had already embarked
on a before-breakfast survey of the shoal. They returned
shortly with news of the discovery of two more anchors

The Bahama Islands 111

halfway down the reef. These were also equipped with
chain, they said, and fashioned with metal stocks. They had
seen no other evidences of a wreck in the vicinity of the
anchor. Ed reminded us that the metal stocks, like the
chain, were an indication that the anchors had not lain on
the bottom long, as only wooden crosspieces had been
used until about the middle of the nineteenth century.

After breakfast Clayton, Ed, and J set out with the
glass-bottomed boat. We had not searched long before
we spotted a large metal windlass rearing up from the bot-
tom about twelve feet below us. As we circled to have
another look, we could see anchors, a second, smaller wind-
lass and a long length of chain trailing across the bottom
from the large windlass, which was still wrapped with a
heavy section of it. Nearby lay a heap of the chain, just as
it had reposed in its locker when the ship went down.

“Well, this certainly isn’t the copper wreck,” Ed said,
“but it looks like a good spot for Jane and Barney to get the
underwater pictures they're after.”

It was afternoon by the time Sea Diver was anchored
near the wreckage and the equipment prepared for div-
ing. The sky had clouded over several times, with accom-
panying deluges of rain, but between showers the sun
shone bright and beautiful, and we took turns exploring
and photographing the bottom. I stayed on deck with Dick
to tend hoses and to hand down cameras and equipment
as they were needed.

The afternoon was nearly over before I took a turn
below. By this time the tide was running out, and as I
climbed down the ladder I found Sea Diver riding within
a few feet of the bottom. The coral-coated windlass of the
wrecked ship was only a few yards away, and I saw that
Ed and Clayton were holding on to it. Ed motioned me to
swim their way.

I released my hold on the ladder and launched myself

112 Sea Diver

in their direction. But I was not prepared for the force of
the tide, which immediately seized me and carried me
feet first toward the stern of the boat. I swam against it
with every bit of strength I could muster, for the surprise
attack had carried me well aft of the ladder and there was
nothing within reach to hang on to. I succeeded only in
preventing myself from being swept farther astern.

Ed, who, I now realized, had attached himself to the
windlass to brace himself against the surge, saw my pre-
dicament and allowed the current to carry him my way. I
grabbed at his air hose and clung to it, still kicking wildly
with my flippers, as he towed me to where I could get a
purchase on the windlass. I hung on for dear life, breathing
heavily, and consequently adding to that stifling feeling
which seems to accompany extreme effort or emotion un-
derwater.

How was it, I stormed to myself, that everyone else
was able to handle himself without difficulty, whereas,
had it not been for Ed’s assistance, I would have been
swept away with the tide? Of course there was the com-
forting thought that my air hose would have brought me
up short when I reached the end of it. Had I been wearing
self-contained equipment, however, I might now be strug-
gling helplessly against the tide, far out at sea. There was
still a lot I had to learn about this underwater swimming, I
decided.

I was far from enjoying that interval. I stayed close
beside the windlass while Jane and Barney took turns div-
ing down with their cameras to photograph the Link fam-
ily underwater. Now and then I ventured a quick foray to
some other piece of wreckage to which I could cling. When
I saw the pictures later, I was surprised at the ease with
which I appeared to be handling myself, one arm out-
stretched with careless grace as if I were examining some-
thing on the face of the wreckage. Such is the effect of a

The Bahama Islands 113

fluid environment, for in its grasp it is impossible to make
an awkward movement.

I was still breathless when I climbed back on deck,
and it took me the rest of the afternoon to recover. The
other divers soothed my injured ego a little by assuring
me that earlier in the afternoon there had been no diffi-
culty. I had been unfortunate enough to join them just as
the outgoing tide reached full force, and they, too, had had
to exert every effort to carry on with their picture taking.

I now realized the meaning of those little arrows on
our chart flanking “1% knots” at the edge of the bank. I
am sure the outgoing pull was much stronger than average
that particular afternoon.

It really was not so surprising, I thought, that a sud-
den, shelf-like drop from less than two fathoms to the 150
fathoms at the edge of the Bahama canal should create
such a condition. As a matter of fact, it probably explained
why all that we had been able to find on these wreck sites
at the edge of the bank were such heavy things as can-
non, windlasses, anchors and chain. With such a current
flowing twice a day over the years, anything less weighty
must soon disintegrate and be carried off.

My experience that afternoon taught me a healthy
respect for the power of tides such as I had never experi-
enced along the shores and reefs of the Florida coast.
Many times thereafter we encountered a similar situation
as we explored the shoals and reefs of the Bahama banks,
yet in other deep-water sections of the Bahamas we had
no difficulty.

Before the afternoon was over, a wind from the north-
west had sprung up and Ed suggested we seek an anchor-
age for the night on the Lily bank, in more protected
waters. If this same wind continued on the morrow, he
said, it would be too rough to search the outside reefs, and

114 Sea Diver

perhaps we had better start our survey for the brass can-
non and the plate wreck, farther in on the bank.

When we woke the next morning, we found that the
wind had returned to its normal summer position in the
southeast. It was already blowing ten knots, roughing the
surface of the water and destroying the clear visibility
of the bottom. As we were already on the location, we de-
cided to continue with our plan to search for the brass
cannon and the plate wreck.

We had been told that we would probably find the
cannon forming the center of a dark patch of coral, its
grassy perimeter separated from the black center by a
stretch of white sand. So Barney, Dick and Ed took turns
watching from the crows-nest as we followed carefully
calculated compass courses back and forth across the banks.
Each time the watcher spied a black patch, we cruised
hopefully toward it, eyes peeled to catch a glimpse beneath
the water of those loglike objects which would be brass
cannon.

We found the entire Lily bank to be harmless, deep
sand, but toward the middle of the afternoon, in the vicin-
ity of Matanilla reef, we came upon some wicked-looking
coral formations. After Sea Diver was anchored at a safe
distance, Jane and Barney took the dinghy to examine
them. They found a wild, awesome underwater wilderness,
its brown, tumbled, rocky surface broken by deep crevasses
full of seaweed and milling masses of fish.

When they were once more on board, we retreated
southward a mile or so to the safety of the bank, where
we anchored for the night. The day had passed without a
glimpse of what we were seeking. Ed acknowledged the
difficulty of the task we had set ourselves. It was all very
well to know the latitude of the plate wreck, but with no
longitude to assist us, Ed figured the wreck could lie any-

The Bahama Islands 115

where within a ten-mile-long area. He retreated under the
black hood once more to consult the loran. He found that
Sea Diver was some distance north of the latitude which
Captain Phips had designated on his chart. As she was also
well east on the bank, he figured that by traveling due
south in the morning until we reached the latitude of the
plate wreck, and then heading directly west until we
reached deep water at the far end of the bank, Sea Diver
would be within the area of the lost ship.

Fortunately, the following day proved perfect for
our task. The sea was so calm and clear that it appeared to
have no depth at all. We explored every black patch
which came within our vision as we slowly patrolled the
bank. We finally reached deep water without even the
thrill of a false hope. Then, finding ourselves in the deep
water of the Bahama canal, which signaled the end of
our course, we circled southward and started back across
the banks in a southwesterly direction. The sea was as still
as the extremely hot air which surrounded us. The day
was ideal for our search, but our spirits were low, for it
seemed most unlikely that what remained of the plate
wreck would be exposed to view in such deep and shifting
sand.

We had traveled on this last course for about a half
hour when we glimpsed something sticking out of the
water far ahead. By turns we looked at it through the
binoculars, but could only make out that it was an open
pyramidal structure set on a slant—perhaps some ship's
wreckage or a drifted marker, we speculated, for there was
no beacon indicated on our chart anywhere in this remote
area of the banks.

We headed toward it in glassy water only two fathoms
deep. Soon there was a cry of joy from Clayton, who was
straddling the plank flooring of the pulpit. A school of
porpoises had discovered Sea Diver and were sporting

116 Sea Diver

about the bow. To a man, the whole ship’s company
grabbed cameras and began photographing while the
frolicsome animals raced and stunted and showed off be-
fore us like Hollywood veterans.

Snorting and cavorting, they would swim alongside,
then make a sudden lunge into the white foam which
curled up at our bow. In formations of three and four they
raced along just beneath the surface, then with one accord
leaped gracefully into the air. As they dove back into the
water, we could hear their squeals of glee, and the peculiar
sound of their breathing through the blowholes in the
top of their heads. They stayed with us until Sea Diver
approached what now appeared to be the remains of a
drifted marker beacon. Then suddenly they were gone,
and in their place we caught glimpses of hundreds of
rapier-like barracuda swimming in easy, wide circles
about the wreckage, their silver-and-black bodies gleam-
ing against the brightly lighted white bottom sands. A
school of smoothly curved “horse-eyes” slowly and de-
liberately circled Sea Diver. And as we paid out our an-
chor, a dozen amber jacks gathered at our stern; beyond
them a churning mass of houndfish awaited the pleasure of
the larger fish for supper. :

I looked toward the numerous barracuda, ranging in
size from two to six feet, as they milled about the water-
logged structure, and thanked my stars that I was on deck.
Not so Jane and Barney.

“Come on, Jane. Here’s our chance to get some pic-
tures of barracuda,’ Barney called to her. The anchor was
hardly down before they were over the side, armed with
nothing more than a camera apiece. Barney struck out
toward the fish and Jane followed. Now they were midway
between the marker and the boat. The barracuda retreated
before them, fanning out to each side as they approached.
' We called to them not to allow themselves to become en-

The Bahama Islands 117

circled. They were taking pictures, maneuvering to get
shots of each other in company with the fish. Barney was
nearly to the marker when Jane called to him to come
back.

“Barney, you don’t have to get that far from the boat,”
she shouted, with just a hint of panic in her voice. “They ll
follow you if you come this way.”

And they did. But the savage-looking fish kept a re-
spectful distance as the two swimmers retreated slowly
toward the boat taking pictures all the time. They climbed
back on board while scores of curious barracuda clustered
only a few feet from the ladder.

With only one day left before we must return to
Florida, we decided to abandon our nearly hopeless search
on Lily bank and return to the reef north of Memory rock.
Perhaps tomorrow we might come across the four cannon
which had been seen by a fisherman at West End, and we
figured it was just possible that these guns might mark the
location of the copper wreck. We got Sea Diver under way
and set our course southward. Just before sunset we an-
chored once more behind the reef where Phips had in-
dicated the copper wreck was to be found.

Our last morning on the banks dawned hot, with little
wind. Jane and Barney wanted to spend the day skin div-
ing, so they took the small skiff, planning to tow it along
behind them as they took turns swimming and diving along
the outer edge of the reef. Ed, Clayton, and I started out
with the glass-bottomed boat.

We searched the entire morning without coming
across a single encouraging indication. Reaching the south
end of the reef, we turned back toward Sea Diver. We
could see Jane and Barney in the water some distance
away, near where they had anchored the small boat. Sud-
denly they began to wave at us. They were shouting, too,
but we could not make out their words over the noise of

118 Sea Diver

the outboard. We headed their way, thinking they were
in trouble.

As we approached them, Jane gasped, “Cannon.
Dozens of cannon. All over the bottom.”

In the quiet which followed the cessation of our noisy
outboard, they told us how Jane, who had been swimming
along the surface gazing down through her face plate, had
suddenly spied a cluster of cannon. When she and Barney
dived on them, to their amazement they discovered there
were more cannon lying in every direction.

We quickly cast anchor beside them, and soon were
in the water, where we could observe the coral-crusted
guns from the surface. There were indeed dozens of them.
A series of exploratory dives failed to reveal any other
signs of the wreck, though there might be many objects
hidden in the coral growths which partially covered the
bottom. Could it be we had found the copper wreck? We
decided to bring Sea Diver to the spot so that we could use
the air equipment and examine the bottom more carefully.

When J reached the bottom of the ladder in my div-
ing gear that summer afternoon, I looked down upon a
golden underwater world. The sun beaming through the
translucent water in slanting rays turned the sandy bottom
to purest gold, and illuminated the scattered cannon and
coral formations until they, too, shone, their surfaces orna-
mented with the vivid reds and greens and purples of nu-
merous sea growths, which gleamed like jewels against
the gold encrustration. Yellow and purple sea fans and
snaky lavender Gorgonia waved to and fro in the tide.

We made the most of our few remaining hours. When
there weren't enough air hoses to go around, those who
were left without them spent their time floating on the
surface, from whence they made numerous dives to ex-
amine or photograph whatever caught their eye below.
Ed and Barney combed the bottom with the metal detector,

The Bahama Islands 119

and we all searched the area carefully, hoping to come
across other evidences of the wrecked ship.

By the end of the afternoon we were convinced that,
as in the other wrecks we had found on the same reef,
whatever may have lain there originally had long since
been swept away in the powerful tidal flow of decades.
There were left only about thirty heavy cannon and a
scattering of rock ballast. The cannon, Ed said, were mostly
British carronades of the early nineteenth century. The
metal detector had failed to reveal any hidden metals in
the coral and sand which surrounded them.

We returned to the protected waters behind the reef
to anchor for the night, our search at an end. We had
found no sign of the copper wreck; yet we felt sure that
it was upon this very reef that Captain Phips had found and
salvaged it. Could we but look long and hard enough,
we might still come across some trace of it.

But we were now convinced that if either the Genuees
wreck or the copper wreck should be found on these outer
reefs, they long since would have been swept clean of any
worth-while artifacts. As to the plate wreck, it was prob-
ably buried in the shifting bottom sands of the Lily bank, to
be revealed only at some rare moment when an unusually
disturbed sea might uncover it briefly. It was scarcely
probable that fortune would favor us to such an extent.

We put Jane, Barney and Dick Burrows ashore at
West End the following afternoon. The Criles planned to
catch the plane from Nassau to Palm Beach on its semi-
weekly stop at Grand Bahama, for Barney had to be in his
operating room in Cleveland the following morning. Dick
was to hop an island freighter for Nassau. This left Ed,
Clayton and me to crew Sea Diver across the Gulf Stream
to Miami, where we planned to meet Mendel Peterson the
next morning and then proceed to Art McKee’s wreck in
the Florida keys.

120 Sea Diver

We felt very much alone after the fun and excitement
of the past two weeks, and not a little disappointed that
we had failed to turn up anything of consequence in our
meanderings. But I had forgotten the odd-shaped chunks
of coral-covered metal which we had picked up at Bur-
rows cay until I stubbed my toe on one of them as I hur-
ried forward to help get Sea Diver under way for the
all-night crossing to Miami.

“What do you suppose is under that coral?” I ques-
tioned Ed as I took the wheel, while he and Clayton made
ready to haul in the anchor. It was not the first time we
had speculated over the identity of these salvaged objects
which we had dynamited loose from the shallow bottom
off Burrows cay.

Dick had taken us to the wreck on our way from Cay
Gorda to West End. He told us that a remote Spanish an-
cestor of his had been shipwrecked on the island and that
this was how it had received its name. We had anchored
Sea Diver some distance from the small cay and gone in
on the skiff, for the remains were in only about a fathom
of water. There was little wreckage to be seen, but in the
coral rock which formed the bottom we could faintly dis-
cern a few stubby cylindrical shapes which appeared to
be short pieces of pipe or broken sections of cannon.

Ed and Barney had blasted out two of them and la-
boriously transferred them aboard Sea Diver. They were
heavily encased in coral, which we had left on to protect
the inner metal until we reached Florida and could im-
merse them in fresh water. They were apparently very
old, for a chunk of coral which had broken off from one
end was more than an inch thick.

Although the night’s crossing was uneventful, the
summer sky dazzling with stars above the fluorescent sur-
face of the sea, it will always linger in my mind. We were
barely out of sight of the Bahamas when we first picked

The Bahama Islands 121

up the luminous flush in the western sky which was Miami
and the Gold Coast. [ slept for a brief two hours in the
heart of the night and then took over the watch, anticipat-
ing that breath-taking moment when the man-made glow
of the Florida coast would be matched by the dawn light
in the east.

I was not disappointed. Wrapped in a steamer robe
on the foredeck of Sea Diver while the faithful automatic
pilot guided us steadily toward home port, I watched the
first faint light creep upward in the east, paling the stars
and giving a faint apricot tint to the edges of the scattered
clouds hanging heavily over the now-vanished Bahamas.
Then, as the sun rose above the horizon, the apricot deep-
ened until the whole eastern sky was filled with brilliant
orange. Only the delicate cirrus clouds in the south bore
remembrance of the apricot dawn.

Ahead of Sea Diver the medley of lights which was
civilization gradually disappeared in the dawn; the sweep-
ing beam of Hillsboro light beyond Fort Lauderdale was
no longer visible. The blinking colored lights on the tall
towers, which had previously indicated to us the location
of Miami, had vanished. Ahead could be seen only a dim,
low coastline. A few miles more and it would be possible
to distinguish the tall hotels along the water front of Miami
Beach.

Ed and Clayton, awakened by the morning light,
joined me on the foredeck and together we watched with
binoculars for the first clue as to our position. At last we
were able to pick out the thickened horizon which was
Miami Beach. With a slight change of course we continued
toward the stone jetties guarding the entrance to Miami,
skirted the now-towering white facades of Miami Beach,
picked up the navigation markers of the outer harbor en-
trance and then swung into the long approach to Miami.
Quickly inspected by quarantine authorities as we halted

E22 Sea Diver

briefly in the channel, we went on to customs clearance,
and by nine o'clock were in the yacht basin in downtown
Miami.

We were just tying up when Pete hailed us. Tossing
his duffle aboard, he helped to set the spring lines, then
joined us on deck. We showed him the few pieces we had
recovered from the Bahama waters—the iron balustrade
that looked like a bedpost; the stubby, cylindrical-shaped
iron pipes which might be broken gun barrels; a battered
grenade; and some metallic ballast from the wreck off Cay
Gorda.

To our surprise he evinced a great interest in the
cylinders. “Where's a mallet? Let’s see what’s under this
coral,” he said.

As the coral fell away, we saw what appeared to be
the muzzle end of a small cannon. The piece was so short
I felt sure it was broken, yet both ends were as smooth and
finished as the ends of a pipe. The second piece proved to
be similar, though larger in circumference.

“Are these all you have of it?” Pete queried, as he laid
the two pieces on the deck with a space between.

“Well, there were some other pieces in the coral on the
bottom,” Ed said, “but we didn’t know what they were,
and they were apparently all alike, so I only brought a
couple of them along.”

“You could get the rest of it then?” Pete seemed re-
lieved. I wondered at his constant use of the singular.

“Do you know what you have here?” he questioned.

He told us that these pieces were part of an ancient
cannon called a lombard, which was in common use until
the middle of the sixteenth century. After that time it was
replaced by the type of barrel we know today, which is
molded all in one piece. The earlier guns, he said, were
made exactly like a barrel, the wrought-iron bars bound
together with metal hoops which were shrunk around them

The Bahama Islands 123

to hold them in place. The particular lombard we had
found was broken into sections. Apparently we had failed
to recover the one or two additional sections which would
make it complete.

Just such a piece of armament had announced to
Christopher Columbus aboard the Santa Maria that land
had been sighted from the Pinta, as his small fleet ap-
proached the Bahama islands on that historic voyage west-
ward in 1492. Pete said that these parts which we had
found probably dated back to within sixty years of Co-
lumbus’s discovery of America and, as far as he knew, rep-
resented the only lombard in existence today which had
been found within the American continents.

He was insistent that at the first opportunity we must
return to Burrows cay to see if we could recover the miss-
ing parts of the gun. In the meantime he would send the
two pieces to the Smithsonian, where the long process of
curing and preserving them could be begun.

Pete also examined with interest other things we had
found at Burrows cay: broken bits of brown pottery, now-
crumbled bits of tarred hempen line, and a misshapen
hollow metal ball with a fuse hole in the end. From these
various small artifacts he deduced that there were two
separate wrecks upon the same spot, the earlier wreck
bearing the Columbus-period lombards, and the later one,
probably eighteenth century, containing the grenade, the
tarred line and the pottery.

So our voyage had not been a complete failure after
all. Ed was sure we would be able to recover the additional
section of the lombard, although, he said, we probably
would not be back in that part of the Bahamas again until
the following year.

Unwittingly, we had found a sample of armament
long since relegated to history. Thus were sown in us the
first seeds which were to result in the climaxing voyage of

124 Sea Diver

our explorations with Sea Diver—a voyage during which
we would seek the place of Columbus’s first landfall and
his route through the Bahamas when he discovered the
New World, and during which we would search for the
unknown reef off the north coast of Haiti where the Santa
Maria met her doom. The voyage would also include the
faraway Silver shoals beyond Turks island, where Captain
Phips made fame and fortune with his discovery of a
treasure-laden Spanish plate ship.

The Bahama Islands 125

Pete’s identification of the sixteenth-century
lombard made us eager to return to Burrows cay to secure
the missing section. But although we spent the entire win-
ter of 1953-54 in the Bahamas, it was not until summer
that we anchored once more near the site of that disaster.

We found the place undisturbed since our previous
visit. It was plain to see how the ship had ended up where
its ballast now lay, in scarcely six feet of water just off the
island’s rocky shore. It had wrecked on the edge of the
Little Bahama bank, just where a ship caught in a storm,
heading through Northwest Providence channel, could
easily have been swept into the shallows near the shore.
The fact that there were also remains from a more recent
wreck on the same spot was proof of its hidden menace.

We searched the site with great care, hoping to find
other evidences of worth, but aside from the scattered
stone ballast there was nothing left but the odd pieces of
cannon.

It required another small charge of dynamite to loosen

126 Sea Diver

the remaining sections from the bottom. These Barney
and Ed quickly transferred to Sea Diver. This time, know-
ing their value, they hastened to submerge the two sec-
tions they had retrieved in a barrel of fresh water to pre-
vent their deteriorating further before delivery to the
Smithsonian.

We made Nassau our headquarters that year, berth-
ing Sea Diver at the Yacht Haven, a popular center for
yachts from every part of the world. We planned to track
down a score of stories we had heard of wrecked ships
and sunken treasure in widely scattered parts of the Ba-
hamas.

We were better equipped than ever before, for Sea
Diver was now fitted with radar and sonar as well as spe-
cially designed plates to keep her from rolling when at
anchor. We also looked forward to a permanent crew of
two—Vital Jetty, the French-Canadian who for many years
had looked after our place in the Canadian bush; and Ed-
ward Kemp, a native Bahamian from Andros island who
had crewed for us during our visits to the Bahamas the
previous winter.

When Vital had accompanied us to Marathon on
our initial diving venture, his first time away from the
familiar forest life of lumbering, hunting and trapping,
we had been amazed at the readiness with which he had
adapted himself to living on a sailboat, and his versatility
in handling the many strange tasks which confronted him.
He had heartily disliked the summer heat of the Florida
keys, but in spite of this he must have found sufficient in-
terest and adventure in that first job to make him willing
to set out with us again.

Although he could neither read nor write, and his
English was an amusing blend picked up in the lumber
camps and colored with outcroppings of his native French,

The Bahama Islands 127

he had a very keen mind. He need only watch Ed start a
motor or repair a piece of equipment once; from then on
he was able to repeat the process. He liked to keep things
clean and tidy, which was a most welcome attribute aboard
Sea Diver; and he could cook like a French chef.

We had wondered when we set out that winter how
Vital and Edward Kemp would get along together, for
Kemp, an equally adept member of his part of the world,
was possessed of an entirely different temperament. He
had grown up in the little village of Nicolls’ Town on the
eastern shore of Andros island, close to Morgan's bluff
at its northern tip. From early boyhood he had been
schooled in the seamanship of the banks, accompanying
the older fishermen of the community on long trips in the
native sailing sloops in search of fish and crawfish. Now
in his own village Kemp was kingpin. He was an official
of the government and a warden of the church. He owned
extensive property and a crawfish boat of his own which
he rented to his fellow villagers. As Captain Ed Kemp he
was well known throughout the Bahamas.

He was a good-looking black man, tall and well built,
with an affable, easygoing nature which wore well. He
was very religious, and it became a familiar sight to see
him perched on the stool behind the automatic pilot, a pair
of little steel-rimmed spectacles clinging to his bony fea-
tures, carefully tracing out the words of well-worn religious
tracts which he carried with him faithfully on all occasions.
He was a most abstemious man, who never took a drink
and seldom smoked. Kemp was handy in the galley, too,
where he produced some delicious Bahamian dishes.

But his chief value to us was his uncanny ability to
find his way about in the shallow waters of the Bahama
banks. With Kemp watching from the pulpit, we did not
need a fathometer—in fact, he was much more depend-

128 Sea Diver

able, for his quick eyes picked up the shallow places long
before we had reached them. And many times his out-
stretched arm motioned us in careful detours about coral
heads and shallow sandbanks which we otherwise might
have hit.

We were indeed fortunate in the respective abilities
and personalities of our crew. But it was not until we had
lived aboard ship with them for some time that we came
to appreciate how favored we were. The two men, so dif-
ferent in appearance and temperament, were soon fast
friends. This, in spite of the fact that after many weeks
they were still not always able to understand each other
—the broken English of the French-Canadian and the
heavy Conch accent of the colored Bahamian.

Vital, with his quick Gallic wit, constantly twitted
the slower-minded Kemp, who nevertheless always man-
aged to hold his own in his good-natured way with a dig-
nified and often apt reply.

We were entranced at the colorful interchange of
conversation which went on between them—comparisons
of winter in the bush with year-round summer on the
banks; of fishing in Canadian lakes and streams with deep-
water fishing and crawfishing in the Bahamas; of danger-
ous hurricanes which Kemp had experienced, and the
perils of blizzards which Vital had met while following
his trap line, miles from civilization. They discussed their
respective Catholic and Baptist faiths, marriage and chil-
dren, the technique of canoe construction as compared to
that of the sturdy Bahamian dinghy; and so on and on
and on.

As there was only the one cabin on the deck of
Sea Diver, around which the whole life of shipboard cen-
tered, from navigating the ship in the pilot house to pre-
paring the meals and doing up the dishes in the galley;

The Bahama Islands 129

and as three times a day all on board must of necessity
gather here to eat and drink, our voyages were continually
enlivened by this interesting pair.

Kemp, the previous winter on Sea Diver, had been
well indoctrinated with our enthusiasm for sunken wrecks
and treasure ships. So when we dropped anchor in Pleasant
Harbor behind his home at Nicolls’ Town in January of
1954, he was there to meet us. He hurried aboard, bursting
with stories which he had gathered of piles of ballast and
cannon upon the banks. Our chart of the area in the vicinity
of Andros island was soon sprinkled with dots and notes
describing what was to be found in the various locations.
He promised us that when we were ready to look for the
wrecks, he could produce the men who had told him of
them.

Unfortunately we found ourselves once more beset
by the same high winds and heavy seas which had char-
acterized the winter months in previous years. And al-
though the fishermen Kemp brought along were sure they
could lead us directly to the wreck indications which they
had seen on the banks, we combed these waters day after
day whenever weather permitted without coming across
a single objective.

Several times we were endangered by heavy seas in
the Tongue of the Ocean, which skirts the Andros island
reefs. And once, when our anchor dragged, we found our-
selves aground in Conch sound, with east winds of twenty
knots blowing us ever harder upon the solid coral bottom
near the shore. It took the arduous labors of all hands
over an anxious period from sundown to the following
noon, plus the help of some fifteen villagers, to get Sea
Diver off. Fortunately, she escaped with only a chewed-up
wormshoe and a slightly bent wheel, which Ed, working
underwater, was later able to straighten.

130 Sea Diver

After many days of fruitless search, hampered by the
rough seas, we decided to head south by way of the Tongue
of the Ocean for the poorly charted and almost unknown
banks south of Andros. Here we hoped to come upon two
wrecks which Kemp advocated enthusiastically. We had
only to follow the directions which he had obtained from
a Curly cay fisherman, he assured us, to cast our anchor
beside the cannon which distinguished them.

It was a long trip to this area, and we spent the first
night at Fresh creek, halfway down Andros, so as to arrive
at our goal with plenty of daylight left to find an anchor-
age. It was well that we did, for upon our arrival the fol-
lowing afternoon we found our chart was useless. Once
inside the banks we would not have dared to move had it
not been for Kemp’s careful piloting.

There followed several days of picking a route for
Sea Diver through a maze of coral heads, and of searching
without success for the cannon which were supposed to
mark the two wrecks. We spent one frightening night
among the reefs while thunderstorms, one after another,
raged past us with winds up to forty knots threatening
to tear us from our anchorage.

During our sojourn on this remote spot, Ed and I took
time to indulge ourselves in some fascinating hours of
diving upon bottom which we were sure had never be-
fore been explored. We raided shallow beds of finger coral,
spreading the smelly stuff all over Sea Diver’s upper decks
to bleach. Ed dived up quantities of conch and crawfish,
which abounded on the banks, while Vital and Kemp
amused themselves by filling the freezer with a limitless
variety of fish which they had caught from the small boat.

Then we headed for Nassau. We had found no trace
of wreckage, although we had followed every clue. At
Nassau we spent considerable time tied up at our dock, for
the winds blew almost continuously for weeks. Once word

The Bahama Islands 13]

got around of Sea Diver’s purpose, we were besieged by
a continuous stream of islanders, some diffidently, some
boldly, attempting to sell us information as to locations of
cannon or ballast stone on the bottom.

At first we listened with eagerness, convinced that
when the weather improved, we would have a number of
wrecks to search out. We jotted down the names of our
informers and where they could be located, and we ar-
ranged to get in touch with them to guide us at the proper
time. Between storms we even managed to search for two
piles of ballast within short runs of Nassau. We spent
several days combing the areas which our guides indicated,
but we never came across a clue.

After a few experiences of this kind Ed decided that
rather than pay a set sum a day for these men to guide us,
he would offer them only their keep while they were
aboard, but if they were able to take us to the site, he
would double the usual daily wage. He also promised that
if we found anything of value, we would share with them
on an equal basis.

It was remarkable what a difference this made in
the number of candidates and the length of time they were
willing to put on a project. I am sure it was responsible for
weeding out many a speculative Bahamian who had noth-
ing to lose but his time, and yet could gain, almost for the
asking, a pleasant trip on Sea Diver with pay.

One morning there appeared on the dock alongside
Sea Diver a graying old colored gentleman with a most
patrician manner. He inquired for Ed in a soft, pleasing
voice. He was from the Abaco islands to the north of
Nassau, he said, and he told us a fascinating yarn of buried
treasure on the outer shore of one of these islands. Like
most of our callers, he seemed sure that we would be able
to go ashore there with our metal detector and locate the

132 Sea Diver

pirate’s trove without any difficulty. He was most disap-
pointed when Ed told him that we were interested in in-
vestigating only underwater treasure.

But then his face brightened. He lowered his voice
mysteriously. “I knows a wrack, sir, not very far from here.
They’s always finding silver on the shore. I’ve even picked
up some myself.”

He went on to say that a pile of ballast lay in the water
a few hundred feet from land, and that many times fol-
lowing a storm the villagers had found pieces of eight on
the beach. This sounded most interesting and we ques-
tioned him eagerly.

“They says it was a Spanish treasure ship, and those
brass guns at Government house was taken off it. I dunno,
sir. Maybe there’s still silver there on the bottom.”

“Where is the ballast? How deep is the water? Can
you show us the spot?”

Our questions came thick and fast. Perhaps at last we
would come upon a worth-while wreck. But when he said
Cay Gorda, our hopes were dashed. It had indeed been a
rich find. It was here that Art McKee and Charlie Brook-
field, several years before, had come upon three heavy
silver bars, two of which were now on display at Art’s
museum.

‘We had thrilled at Art’s story of their discovery—how
the two men had culled the leadlike bullion from a pile
of ballast rock which lay in a scattered heap near Cay
Gorda. Working from a small boat in heavy diving gear,
they had sorted over the ballast, which lay in water only
about ten feet deep. They had seen no other signs of the
ship, and it was their belief that after knocking out its
bottom in the shallow water, the hull had been carried
out to sea, where it had sunk in the deeper water farther
offshore.

We had headed eagerly for Cay Gorda on our first

The Bahama Islands 133

trip to the Bahamas with Sea Diver in March, 1953, accom-
panied by the retired Canadian Air Marshal, Robert Leckie,
and his wife, Sally, both of whom were enthusiastically in-
dulging in their first diving experience.

Cay Gorda turned out to be a pretty, palm-sprinkled
island with a scattering of rude thatched huts facing on
a small, almost landlocked harbor formed by a rocky outer
cay. We anchored Sea Diver offshore and approached the
settlement in the glass-bottomed boat, not wishing to risk
putting the larger boat aground in the narrow entrance.
We found only a fisherman, his wife and two children on
the island. They explained that no one lived on Cay Gorda
any more; that they and some of the other villagers from —
nearby Sandy Point used the island to raise some small
crops and occasionally spent a few days there cultivating
their gardens. The man knew of the ballast we were seek-
ing and obligingly skulled us to its location in his heavy
native skiff.

It lay only a few hundred feet beyond the southern
entrance to the harbor, in water of not more than two
fathoms, just at the edge of a shelf where the bottom
dropped off sharply into much deeper water. Through the
fisherman’s glass bucket we took turns looking at the bal-
last, which lay in a scattered pile on the bottom. It seemed
likely that some of these irregular shapes might turn out
to be silver. Without a detector, how could Art and Charlie
have been sure that they had retrieved all of the valuable
bullion?

We decided to return to Sea Diver and bring her in
where we could anchor her close to the ballast pile.

“This should be easy,” Ed said hopefully, as he guided
the vessel toward the yellow buoy which we had left to
mark the spot. “When I turn the metal detector on that
pile of rocks, it will soon tell us whether or not there is
any silver left there.” ©

134 Sea Diver

As soon as our anchor was down, he and Bob dis-
appeared eagerly over the side with the metal detector.
Sally and I followed them into the water and watched
from the surface as they scanned the rock pile with the in-
strument. About a quarter hour later I saw Ed pick up a
piece of the ballast stone, and he and Bob headed for the
ship. I swam back to the boarding ladder to meet them.

Raising his face mask, Ed said, “There’s something
peculiar about that wreck. I think the stones have a metallic
content. The detector goes crazy wherever I point it.”

He carried the piece of ballast aboard and he and Bob
examined it carefully. Sure enough, it contained a slight
sprinkling of a foreign substance which looked like zinc,
and it responded definitely to testing with the detector.

“Well, there’s a pretty how-do-you-do,” said Ed, dis-
gusted. “How are you going to pick out silver when the
whole pile is jumping?”

The detector was useless. There was nothing to do
but handle each piece of ballast separately in hopes that
a bar or two of the bullion might have been missed by
previous searchers. Ed and Bob spent the remainder of the
afternoon at this arduous task.

They climbed wearily aboard just as the sun was sink-
ing, convinced that whatever silver bars may have lain
there in the past, the carcass was now picked clean. Fur-
thermore, Ed said he felt sure that on such a hard and
rocky bottom there was little chance that anything else
of interest would have survived the constant action of
the sea, which surged in and out of the cove with strength
even upon a calm day. There was one more chance. With
the aid of the magnetometer and the glass-bottomed boat
we might be able to locate the remainder of the wreck,
which must have been swept into the deeper water off-
shore.

So after rigging the magnetometer behind Sea Diver

The Bahama Islands 135

the following morning, Ed spent the next two days comb-
ing carefully back and forth over the deep water adjacent
to the ballast site. To make sure that we did not miss a
clue, Bob Leckie patiently guided Sally and me in turn
over the same territory in the glass-bottomed boat, hop-
ing to glimpse some sign of wreckage which the mag-
netometer might miss. But there was not a trace of any-
thing. The whole bottom was as clean as if it had been
swept with a giant broom. The arrival of a “norther” on
the third day forced us to give up our search and head for
Nassau.

We did not abandon our hopes of Cay Gorda with
that one attempt, however. That same summer, on our
way to Burrows cay with Jane and Barney, we stopped off
there again. In the meantime we had come to the conclu-
sion that if coins had been washed up on the beach in such
numbers over the years, there must still be some in the
sandy bottom between the ballast pile and shore.

Sure enough. After a morning of scrounging at the
edge of the rock pile, we managed to find three heavily
encrusted coins. Only one of them was in sufficiently good
condition to permit identification, and that was only after
Jane had patiently sanded away at the encrustration over
a period of several days. It proved to be a Spanish silver
coin of the seventeenth century, a crude cob with a shield
upon one side and a square cross with castle and lions in
alternate corners. We later ascertained that this coin co-
incided with the authenticated period of the silver bars
which had come from the same site.

While we now felt that we had explored every pos-
sibility at Cay Gorda, there still remained one facet of
this interesting wreck to be followed. Since our first visit
we had heard tales of fishermen obtaining ballast for their
boats from this convenient spot, where the water was so
shallow that the bars could be hooked up from the bot-

136 Sea Diver

tom. Lead ballast was particularly prized in this world of
scarce rock and metal, and it was said that several of the
boats now carried “lead” ballast in their holds. No doubt by
now these vessels were scattered all over the Bahamas. In
fact, three of them, we were told, had been sunk in hur-
ricanes, two on the shallow banks to the north, and a third
on the banks beyond Northwest Channel light.

It was these tales which had inspired Ed to return to
the Bahamas in September with the Widgeon. Kemp had
told him that it was then, during the hurricane season, that
the owners of the boats pulled them up on shore to re-
calk and paint them. Necessarily the ballast was removed
and cleaned at the same time.

Could it be that among the worthless ballast might
be some of the “lead” bars from Cay Gorda? Of course Ed
realized that at the time Art and Charlie had found the
three silver bars, every piece of lead ballast in that section
of the Bahamas must have been hopefully scrutinized by
its owner. Still he felt it was worth a gamble, for with the
plane he could canvass any number of fishing villages in a
few days’ time. Should a hurricane suddenly materialize,
it would be easy to outstrip it and fly to the safety of the
mainland. 4

This venture yielded a most surprising result. In sev-
eral of the villages he was told that an American in a small
cruiser had appeared during the hurricane season the pre-
vious year on a similar mission.

We were never able to trace down the story of this
American who had preceded us. Because of the strict rules
of the Bahamian government on treasure-trove, we felt
certain that if any silver had been found, it had been
spirited quietly away; for neither the ultimate owner nor
the natives who had profited by the transaction would have
admitted it and thus been forced to share their gain with
the government. This has proved most unfortunate for the

The Bahama Islands 137

preservation of much memorabilia, as in consequence many
precious objects which have been recovered must have
been melted and recast into anonymous shapes of gold and
silver before being placed upon the market.

The Bahamas abound in tales of the discovery of
caches of old coins in abandoned wells, in the foundations
of long-destroyed houses and outbuildings, and in caves
and rocky pits. Many of these stories are true, for in the
early days of pirates and desperadoes there was no other
way for the householder to secure his valuables.

The shrewd natives coming upon these caches over
the past century have learned to keep their discoveries
secret, for their prosperity is short-lived once the acquisi- .
tive government learns of their finds. Instead they hoard
the coins, exchanging them one or a few at a time where
they will create the least attention; delighted when they
can find a visiting American who will give them good
present-day currency in their place.

There still remained to be located the three fishing
sloops bearing “lead” ballast from Cay Gorda which had
foundered in hurricanes upon the banks. While we were
based at Nicolls’ Town, Kemp produced a fine-looking
young fisherman named Yorick, who claimed he could take
us to the location of the foundered sloop which had carried
the Cay Gorda ballast on the banks north of Andros. We
made several trips, with Yorick as our guide, in search of
it. Always we seemed to run into foul weather or heavy
seas before the ballast could be located. But because Yorick
was so sincere in his efforts, and Kemp was so sure that
he would eventually take us there, we kept on trying.

Even in May of 1956, en route to Jamaica by way of
Nassau, we stopped off once again in this area and spent
the afternoon in a fruitless search for this wreck. To the
best of our knowledge it still lies undiscovered somewhere
in the vicinity of Northwest Channel light. Somehow we

138 Sea Diver

have never found the time to search for the other two vic-
tims of the hurricane on the banks near Cay Gorda. So
perhaps someday, even yet, these piles of worthless rock
will yield a harvest of silver bars to the happy explorer who
comes upon them.

The Bahama Islands 139

It was our finding of the old lombard dating
from the time of Columbus which first sparked our interest
in the wanderings of the Great Explorer. For the question
was immediately raised as to whether the ancient gun
could have come from one of Columbus’s ships.

Consequently we sought out Columbus's account of
his voyage to the west in 1492, in which he described the
first land he saw in the New World, the Bahamian island
known to the Indians as Guanahani, which he called San
Salvador. We found from other sources that while there
existed a great deal of controversy as to the identity of
this island, it was the general consensus that his first land-
fall was upon Watling island, about halfway down the
chain of Bahamian islands which front on the Atlantic.

There was no reason to think that any of the ships un-
der Columbus’s command during the four voyages he made
to the New World ever sailed anywhere near the area
where we found the lombard. Instead, we learned, subse-
quent voyages led him more and more to the south. After

140 Sea Diver

that first expedition, the Bahamas were completely neg-
lected for the more lush and profitable lands in the vicinity
of the Caribbean.

While we were debating the question of where Co-
lumbus’s sailings had taken him, we came across a small
book, Guanahani Again, which questioned whether Co-
lumbus had in fact made his first landfall on Watling island.
It had been written by Captain Pieter Verhoog, an officer
of the Holland-America Line, who had made many voy-
ages through Bahamian waters. Captain Verhoog main-
tained with careful, well-documented arguments that Co-
lumbus had first set foot on the island of Caicos, farther
to the south. As his study was backed by years of re-
search among the original manuscripts dealing with all
aspects of Columbus's voyages, it seemed to us that his
selection of the Caicos archipelago and the consequent
route which Columbus took through the Bahamas was
worthy of consideration.

But then I recollected having read, several years be-
fore, a fascinating account of Columbus's voyages, Admiral
of the Ocean Sea, by the well-known naval historian, Rear
Admiral Samuel Morison. The book was aboard Sea Diver,
and we reread it thoroughly, meanwhile comparing Mori-
son’s picture of Columbus's first voyage with Verhoog’s
account. Necessarily, because of the selection of different
islands for the first landfall, the two scholars had traced
radically different courses for the little fleet through the
Bahamas to Cuba.

From then on, in our spare time, Ed and I pored over
the writings of various historians from Columbus’s time
on, not neglecting to read and compare the various trans-
lations of Columbus's Journal. Instead of solving the prob-
lem to our satisfaction, we became more confused.

Navarrete, the first historian to render the early Co-
lumbus documents available to the world, in the early

The Bahama Islands 141

nineteenth century, had selected Grand Turk island as
Columbus's San Salvador. Washington Irving, soon after,
in the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, sited
Cat island as the first landfall, while others had selected
Watling and Atwood islands. Of course, the variety of
choices had resulted in the selection of completely differ-
ent paths which the Santa Maria might have sailed
through the Bahamas before her tragic end on an un-
known reef off the north shore of Hispaniola.

None of these earlier writers had ever visited these
Bahama waters. Their theories had been evolved only
from reading Columbus’s Journal and from a study of the
very unreliable charts of the centuries following his dis-
covery. Captain Verhoog, on the other hand, had the ad-
vantage of having sailed these same waters, although
from the high deck of a fast-moving steamer. And Dr.
Morison had made a special voyage from Spain and later
through the Bahamas, where he had traced out the course
which he believed Columbus had followed, checking each
leg of the route with the Journal.

Here again there was much chance for error, for
there are no charts in existence today of the track of the
original voyage; and the early maps of this area were
grossly inaccurate, the islands being charted in most un-
realistic positions, their names bandied back and forth in
a welier of confusion.

Furthermore, we learned, Columbus's Journal as it
exists today is not the original but a rendition from the
original made by Las Casas in his Historia de las Indias
many years later, in which he abridged most of the original
log, quoting in detail only the day of the first landfall and
the following twelve days. Las Casas condensed all other
entries, and recorded them in such a way that references
to Columbus are generally in the third person.

142 Sea Diver

Forced to remain tied up at our dock in Nassau by
bad weather, we found plenty of time to mull over these
controversial facts. Then one day our very good friend,
Philip Van Horn Weems, retired United States Navy of-
ficer and founder and head of the Weems System of Navi-
gation, arrived on board Sea Diver for a brief stay. It was
Captain Weems who had first introduced us to Verhoog’s —
theory, and we soon found ourselves involved in long de-
bates with him as to the relative merits of Morison’s and
Verhoog’s arguments. It was during these discussions that
the idea first occurred to us to go and see for ourselves.

After all, it should not be difficult to take Sea Diver
south to the vicinity of Caicos island and trace out the
course championed by Verhoog. Upon our return journey
we could carefully go over the course from Watling is-
land selected by Dr. Morison. Sea Diver was particularly
well adapted to such a trip, for she did not differ too greatly
from the original Spanish ships in size and speed, and we
should be able to take her wherever Columbus might have
gone.

Captain Weems enthusiastically agreed to go with
us. We could have chosen no better companion, for he is
without doubt the outstanding navigation expert in the
world today, and a man who plunges heart and soul into
whatever he undertakes. A man of nearly three score years
and ten, his broad shoulders and powerful muscles bear
testimony to a lifetime of physical activity. From early
youth in the Naval Academy, when he won the Olympic
wrestling championship for the United States, to the pres-
ent, he has maintained a high level of physical health and
dexterity. With his years of experience in navigation and
seamanship, the practical diplomacy acquired from his
naval career, and his strength and experience in the water,
he would be a most valuable member of our team.

The Bahama Islands 143

It was while we were discussing plans for this trip
that Captain Weems fairly took our breath away with an-
other idea.

“What chance do you think we would have of find-
ing the remains of the Santa Maria?” he said. He told us
that he had been reading a treatise of Morison’s describ-
ing the loss of the Santa Maria when it struck a reef in the
harbor off of Cap Haitien at midnight on Christmas eve of
1492.

“Morison went down there and investigated that area,”
Captain Weems continued. “He even picked out the exact
reef where he thinks the Santa Maria sank.” He brought
forth a copy of Morison’s paper, and we examined the
chart which was included, showing the harbor off Cap
Haitien and the wreck reef which Morison had selected as
the last resting place of the Santa Maria. We spent an ex-
citing evening as we reviewed the possibilities of finding
the lost ship.

Ed figured that some of the metal ship fittings, anchors
and armament would still exist, as on many of the old ships
we had searched. Even though Columbus had salvaged
what he could of the wrecked Santa Maria to construct a
fortification ashore, there must have been parts of the ship
which were inaccessible to the salvagers. These must still
be on the bottom, heavily coated with coral and much
corroded after the centuries. We had never examined a
wreck as ancient as the nearly five-centuries-old Santa
Maria, but if the lombard which we had found in the north
Bahamas had endured since that early time, it was most
probable that the metal remains of the Santa Maria would
still be intact. With our metal detector and magnetometer
we should have a good chance of locating one of the most
historic ships of all time.

The next day Captain Weems returned to Sea Diver
from a visit to town, brimming over with enthusiasm. He

144 Sea Diver

had been to the Haitian consulate to talk over the possibili-
ties with them. They had assured him that arrangements
could be made for us to explore the waters off Cap Haitien,
and that their government would be most interested in en-
couraging the search.

We considered the situation, for we knew nothing
of sea and weather conditions in that area. We recalled
from talks in the past with some of our sailing friends that
big seas were usual along that coast. We knew that this
was an area where there was a rainy and a dry season. We
must be sure to plan our trip at a time when the water
would be clear, and there would be the least number of
storms to disturb our work. We seriously considered the
possibility of leaving that very spring, but when we added
up the requirements that must be met, we finally decided
that the expedition must wait until the following year.

In the meantime another possibility presented itself
and grew with fascinating urgency and appeal. Ever since
we had perused William Phips’s charts and realized the
exciting possibility of locating the remains of the Spanish
treasure ship on the Silver shoals, we had toyed with the
thought of someday visiting these remote waters and at-
tempting to secure the riches which Phips had indicated
still remained beneath the coral. For although the New
England sea captain had been fortunate enough to remove
more than a million and a half pounds’ worth of gold and
silver from the wreck, he had noted in his log that his
divers had been unable to penetrate a large section of the
hull which had become heavily encased with coral in the
years it had lain on the bottom. He had intimated that it
still contained a substantial portion of the bullion which
he was forced to abandon.

To me, an expedition to the Silver shoals seemed only
a dream—a dangerous adventure in far-off waters, which,
while it tantalized my imagination, I had no real desire

The Bahama Islands 145

to investigate further. After all, one could pick no more
risky a spot in the whole hemisphere, for the wreck lay
in a forty-mile-square area of reefs far from any land. I was
content to speculate and to dream.

Now, however, if we were to take Sea Diver to Turks
island, where Verhoog believed Columbus had seen a light
just prior to his discovery of San Salvador, it seemed rea-
sonable to include a trip to the Silver shoals, only a hun-
dred miles beyond.

By the summer of 1954 our plans were pretty well set.
We would begin our expedition by searching for the Santa
Maria at Cap Haitien. From there we would go to the
Silver shoals, some 150 miles to the northeast. With this —
phase of our trip completed by early summer, we would
head for Turks island and the Caicos to investigate the
possible Columbus routes. We expected to spend several
months in these three enterprises, varying the time spent
on each according to our findings.

Ed and I found ourselves swamped with correspond-
ence in regard to the three projects—with Mendel Peter-
son at the Smithsonian, with Captain Weems, the Criles,
and the dozens of other candidates who hoped to join us
at various times. There was an exchange of letters with
officials in the Bahamas, Haiti, the Dominican Republic,
and arrangements to be made for caches of fuel oil for
Sea Diver and special aviation gasoline for the Widgeon,
which Ed intended to have available to aid in our searches.

We corresponded with Captain Verhoog and Dr. Mori-
son in order to clarify questions which arose as to points
in their theories of Columbus's route. We were swamped
with requests for information about our plans from maga-
zines and newspapers. And in our spare time we continued
to hunt out every last bit of material we could find in regard
to all three subjects.

I was surprised to learn that we were going into an

146 Sea Diver

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area where it would be impossible to provide ourselves
with many of the necessities of civilization. There were
many special problems which must be solved ahead of
time. It would be no easy task to foresee and to equip Sea
Diver with all the essentials which would be required for
months away from our mechanized civilization.

For instance, it was necessary to install extra water
tanks and to investigate a method of purifying our water
supply for the time when we would have to refill our tanks
from the questionable water sources to be found in the
remote islands. We would need extra parts for engines and
machinery.

Once our supply of fresh meat, eggs and vegetables
was used up, we would have to depend upon less perish-
able foods which could be stored aboard indefinitely, for
we would be far from land for weeks at a time, and only
the simplest requirements would be obtainable from the
small ports which we might visit in between. We must be
provided with medicines and first-aid equipment to take
care of any emergency, for at the Silver shoals we would
not even have radio communication.

Ed felt that the newly installed radar and sonar, as
well as a Bludworth depthometer which was to be installed,
would be of great assistance in our navigation and search.
In addition to assembling a complete set of charts of the
entire area, he ordered special charts drawn up for the
loran, thus making it possible to use this instrument in a
section of the ocean to which it had never before been
adapted.

Two large rubber life rafts with escape equipment
were added to Sea Diver’s gear, and the ever-faithful glass-
bottomed skiff was provided with two new outboard mo-
tors. But the real addition to our boating equipment was
a shallow-draft eighteen-foot cruiser which Ed designed

148 Sea Diver

and equipped to be used in dangerous reef waters where it
was unsafe to venture with Sea Diver.

With all preliminary arrangements completed, we
started out from Miami with Sea Diver in February of
1955, Ed and Vital and myself. Our three-phase expedi-
tion was not scheduled to begin until later in the spring.
Now, after picking up Kemp at West End, we planned to
head for the fringes of the north Bahama banks. Once
more we were on the trail of brass cannon. Only this time
our search was secondary to trying out the new cruiser
which was carried on Sea Diver's deck, as well as check-
ing other newly installed equipment.

Ed had really outdone himself in planning the cruiser,
and he was very pleased with the result. He had redesigned
a broad, stubby little plywood craft, originally planned
for use with an outboard, to carry a Kermath gasoline en-
gine which would operate the boat by means of a water
jet, making it possible to steer the boat sideways and back-
ward as well as forward. Because the boat had neither a
wheel. nor rudder, and the jetting pipe was only a few
inches beneath its bottom, it would be practically fool-
proof in shallow water and dangerous reef areas.

It was designed so that the engine power could easily
be transferred to an air compressor which operated two
sets of diving equipment aboard, the air hoses readily
accessible from revolving reels in the cockpit. Inside the
small cabin, two square openings had been cut in the bot-
tom near the bow and fitted with Plexiglas, making it pos-
sible to view the underwater while resting comfortably
on the airfoam-cushioned bunks on either side. A small
head and galley aft completed the equipment of the little
cruiser, so that she could be used for overnight trips. She
was even provided with a fathometer and a radiotele-

The Bahama Islands 149

phone, so that communication could be maintained with
the mother ship at sea.

Ed felt it most necessary to determine her handling
characteristics before taking her to some remote part of
the world where it would be difficult to make any changes.
So he had decided to pursue another tale of brass cannon
on the north Bahama banks, which had been told us by a
Danish salvager, Willy Dahl, and, at the same time, gain
some experience with the new craft.

We anchored several days later in the lee of Miss
Romer cay, as far from civilization as it was possible to
get on those remote northern banks, having picked up
Kemp en route at West End. There, while the new
cruiser bobbed prettily from the outrigger on Sea Diver's
port side, she was christened Reef Diver. To complete the
naming of the trio of boats, we called the hitherto-nameless
glass-bottomed skiff Wee Diver. A bottle of rum from the
ship’s store made the christenings official.

A strong northeast wind struck at Reef Diver as we
rounded the end of Miss Romer cay the next morning on
the cruiser’s maiden voyage. We could feel her recoil in
momentary astonishment. Then, with Kemp’s coaxing and
a slight increase in power, she dug her broad bow into
the waves and set out to cross the miles of water between
us and the seaward reefs, where Ed had been told the
cannon were to be found. Even at that distance we could
see a fine show of rolling blue waves and white, breaking
seas.

As Miss Romer cay was left behind, we bounced about
in waves which became ever larger and rougher. Twice
Kemp turned Reef Diver about to test her responsiveness
and to see how she would handle in a following sea. She
answered instantly to guidance in any direction. The water
jet beneath our hull seemed completely adequate, and we
continued toward the reefs with more assurance.

150 Sea Diver

One thing troubled Ed. Because of the low stern,
which originally had been fashioned to accommodate an
outboard motor, a following sea might easily swamp the
cockpit and sink the boat. He would have this remedied
as soon as we reached Nassau, he declared, by having a
removable cover constructed, so that the cockpit area
could be enclosed when we were in rough seas.

As we drew nearer the reefs, I saw to my surprise that
what had appeared to be a long single chain of coral was
actually a staggered grouping of reefs almost a half mile
deep. As Kemp steered a course toward them, Ed took
frequent bearings on the islands behind, then scanned the
water ahead, looking for a passage which led seaward be-
tween the reefs. He told us that the cannon had been
seen between this passage and a low pinnacle of rock
which jutted out of the water just to the west. He thought
it doubtful that we would be able to discern this marker,
for it was probably concealed in the foaming breakers
which churned the whole outer area of reefs.

It also seemed unlikely to me that in these turbulent
waters we would be able to distinguish the deep passage.
I would have turned about gladly and given up the search,
but neither of the men seemed to have any idea of aban-
doning the effort. So I stifled my fears and glued my eyes
to the watery chaos ahead, fuil of doubts as to how far this
untried craft might be trusted and more or less resigned
to whatever fate might bring.

As we approached the reef area, Kemp did a won-
derful job of handling Reef Diver, twisting her this way
and that between half-hidden patches of brown coral an
acre or two in extent and the white, curling crests of waves
that formed and grew and broke as they encountered
the rocky barriers.

It was bad enough heading out toward sea through
these hazards, I thought. What would happen when we

The Bahama Islands 151

had to turn and make for shore, pursued by these frightful
white-maned monsters? I was terrified.

“Please, Ed,” I pleaded, “let’s go back. It’s so danger-
ous.”

But Ed had spotted the rock we had been looking for,
and he wanted to get as close to it as possible. After in-
structing Kemp to continue toward it, he disappeared in-
side the cabin to watch the bottom for signs of the guns.
I stood in the cockpit, braced against the wind, exerting
every bit of self-control I possessed, for I was certain we
would either be capsized in these waves or swept upon a
reef.

Moments passed that seemed like hours. Kemp guided
Reef Diver carefully between a series of rolling combers.
I wanted to shut my eyes, yet I was fascinated at the wild
grandeur of the sight. We made a slow way past the pin-
nacle of rock which was revealed every now and then from
beneath a smothering cover of white foam.

At last Ed reappeared and gave the signal to return.
This was the crucial moment. Would we be able to come
about without shipping quantities of water? Would it be
possible to outrun the waves which formed and broke
around us as they raced for shore? I braced myself for
whatever might come.

With careful timing, Kemp swung Reef Diver's bow
about until we were headed for distant Miss Romer cay.
I waited for one of the huge waves which followed us to
overtake us and burst into the cockpit. Instead, Reef Diver
gallantly rode their crests and shot ahead on their sur-
face until the speedier waves disappeared forward of us.
Indeed, we discovered, we had a boat well adapted to her
task. For with an ordinary craft under such circumstances,
the rudder and wheel would have come out of water each
time a wave rolled beneath, with consequent loss of steer-
ageway. Reef Diver, on the other hand, sat solidly in the

152 Sea Diver

water, her neatly placed water jet maintaining constant
control.

We were safe from the whole waves, but what of those
whose crests were breaking all around us? Surely, we
would be caught by one of them and swamped!

Twice, huge seas broke just as they reached our stern,
and twice Kemp, anticipating them, swung Reef Diver
around to face them. They burst harmlessly against our
high bow. Perhaps we would survive after all.

I began to feel braver. When we were through the
worst of the pursuing seas, I felt sufficiently reassured to
take a turn watching the bottom through the glass panels
in the cabin. There, lulled by the familiar sight of white
sand bottom, green-brown grass and mottled coral forma-
tions, half veiled by murky, sand-filled water, my com-
posure returned.

But the next morning, when Ed decided to go out to
the reefs again, I was quick to offer to stay aboard Sea
Diver and let Vital go in my place. Although the wind had
gone down considerably, the distant reefs were still white
with foam, and I had no desire to repeat the experience of
the previous day. Promising to be back by lunchtime, the
three men cast off Reef Diver and soon disappeared around
the end of the island, which hid the reefs that were their
destination from my sight.

I set about catching up with some tasks aboard, and
before I knew it the morning was gone. It was not until
lunchtime that I began to wonder why they did not return.

As the afternoon wore on, my imagination ran wild. Sup-
pose Reef Diver had been swamped? Or suppose the en-
gine had quit and they had been carried out to sea by the
tide? I checked the tide tables, only to find that the tide
was indeed running out. This did not help my morale.

I was alone on Sea Diver, miles from the nearest
settlement. There had been no sign of a human being

The Bahama Islands 153

since we had anchored two days before. I could not launch
Wee Diver alone, to say nothing of getting the outboard in
place and started. And I did not know how to contact a
Bahamian station by radiotelephone. Besides, I did not
want to raise an alarm unless I was sure it was necessary.

I climbed the ladder up Sea Diver's mast to the cabin
top. From there I was able to see across the top of the cay
toward the section of reefs the men had headed for. But
even with the binoculars I could not make out a sign of
the little cruiser. I swung the glasses wildly back and forth,
to no avail. Then, way off to the west, in the shelter of
Double Breasted cay, I picked out a small dinghy. Closer
inspection revealed two native fishermen—surprisingly,
with an outboard. How could I attract their attention?

For the next half hour I alternated between tooting
Sea Divers horn and waving our large American flag,
which I removed from the stern. At last I caught their at-
tention, and they headed my way. I waited impatiently
until they had drawn alongside Sea Diver and cut their
motor. Their curiosity turned to sympathetic understand-
ing as I explained my predicament. I asked them if they
would take their boat around the end of the cay to where
they could see the outside waters. If Reef Diver was in
trouble, would they please go to her assistance?

I waited, nearly hysterical with fear, while they dis-
appeared from sight, and then another long twenty min-
utes until I saw them coming back toward Sea Diver. To
my relief they reported the cruiser was on the way in. She
was close to the outer shore of the cay, and that was no
doubt why I had not been able to see her.

I thanked them sheepishly, gave them some money for
their trouble, and waited impatiently for the three men to
return. When Reef Diver finally drew up alongside, I met
them, thankful for their safe return, yet seething with all
the emotions which had coursed through me during the

154 Sea Diver

past hours—worry and fright over their long absence, the
stunned realization that alone on Sea Diver I was help-
less to handle the equipment, and indignation at Ed for
thoughtlessly subjecting me to long hours of fear for their
safety.

Im afraid I gave him a bad time, for when I finally
broke down in tears, he gruffly commanded me not to be
foolish. “It was much quieter out there today,” he said,
“and we had a good chance to look over the bottom. I
never dreamed you would be worried.”

And I’m sure he meant it, for, when Ed sets his mind
on a specific objective, every other consideration fades into
the background. I said no more, but this was one of the
times when I wished for another woman aboard, who
would have understood and sympathized with my feelings.
And I’m sure it was one of the times when Ed would have
been just as happy with only a male crew.

We had planned to leave for Nassau the next morn-
ing, but when we woke there was scarcely any wind, for
the first time since our arrival. So we piled into Reef Diver
and headed seaward. I went along because, after my ex-
perience of the previous day, I preferred to brave the
hazards of the reefs than to stay alone aboard Sea Diver
and fret.

This time we found that the sea within the reefs had
calmed down considerably, except where the waves roll-
ing in from the open ocean continued to break with a great
white roar upon the reefs. Ed and I disappeared into the
cabin to have a look at the bottom as we neared the pin-
nacle of rock which was our landmark. Perhaps today we
would be able to sight the brass cannon.

Beneath our hull, the white sand was ridged in wide
windrows, like snow after a blizzard has swept across the
fields. Here and there the erratic tracks of conches marred
its pristine perfection. Half hidden by a thick, greenish-

The Bahama Islands 155

brown sea growth which was swept flat by the force of
the incoming tide, brown patches of coral sheltered the
usual collection of bright-colored fish life.

I saw a few shapes reminiscent of cannon in the white
sand, but always upon closer inspection they proved to be
only coral. As I strained my eyes to examine a particularly
deceiving one, it unexpectedly disappeared beneath the
flapping wings of a huge, breath-takingly beautiful leopard
ray. We circled the area again, but where the ray had been
there was only coral. No cannon.

I suddenly became aware of the roar of breakers out-
side the cabin. After only one glance from the window at
the breaking seas on a nearby reef, I quickly buried my
head once more in the well of the glass bottom. The sea
might indeed be calmer today, but there was still danger
in approaching so close to those breakers.

Even Ed agreed it was too wild to attempt anchoring
or diving upon the bottom. From the direction of the open
sea the long waves of the Atlantic continued to assault the
reefs with heavy strokes. It was no time to be searching for
brass cannon.

A short time later Ed rose from the bunk opposite me.
“There’s no use looking any longer,” he said. “We'll have
to wait until summer, when the weather is more depend-
able, so that we can search the bottom with the metal de-
tector.”

He reluctantly gave orders to Kemp to turn back, and
we headed once more for the anchorage behind Miss
Romer cay, where we could safely swing Reef Diver
aboard the larger boat. That afternoon we set out for Nas-
sau, where we planned to berth Sea Diver until the start
of our expedition to Haiti early in April.

156 Sea Diver

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All night long Sea Diver had rolled and
tossed in a heavy cross sea as she forged through the rough
waters between Great Inagua and the north coast of Haiti.
From the moment we had poked her nose out into the open
waters beyond Northeast point, she had wallowed on a
wet and uncomfortable course.

Unfortunately we had begun this portion of our trip
just at sunset, and by the time I had prepared a simple sup-
‘per for the crew, there was scarcely anyone left to eat it.
Vital, Bill, and Clayton had quietly disappeared with their
uneasy stomachs to the solace of their bunks. Only Cap-
tain Weems, Kemp, Ed and myself had stuck it out, taking
our turns at wheel and galley, but happy to head for our
cabins, too, as our particular duty ended.

Now it was dawn, and my turn for the watch. I as-
cended the ladder sleepily, battling to maintain my foot-
ing as I pushed back the stubborn hatch, and stumbled
out upon the deck. In my mind lingered a vision of the
Bahama islands we had known during the past few days,

Search for the Santa Maria 159

long, low, monotonous coastlines scarcely breaking the
smooth curve of the horizon. I was totally unprepared for
the sight which met my eyes.

On both sides of Sea Diver loomed brown, tumbled
mountains. Recalling the chart which I had studied the
night before, I realized that we were approaching the
wide, deep stretch of water which separates Tortuga is-
land, pirate stronghold of bygone days, from the moun-
tainous north coast of Haiti. The sun was not yet up, and
only a pale glow suffused the eastern sky ahead of us,
barely lighting the mists which clung to the high brown
shores.

As I made my way forward to the pilothouse to take
over the watch from Ed, a wave of anticipation swept over
me at the thought of seeking Columbus’s lost Santa Maria
in these strange, picturesque surroundings. Captain Weems
was there also, eager to savor with us our first view of the
Haitian coast. Neither of the men had any thought of re-
tiring, for at last our track was joined with that of the Santa
Maria; she had sailed these same waters only days before
meeting her tragic end on a shoal off Cap Haitien. From
now on it was important to check and compare our every
move with both present-day charts and the word picture
presented in Columbus's log.

Our bow was now cutting directly into the waves which
rolled through the passage from the east, headed straight
into the sunrise, and Sea Diver had at last ceased the un-
pleasant roll which had plagued us throughout the night.
Reassured by the smoothness, Bill and Clayton soon joined
us, wide-eyed at the splendor of the towering mountains
on either side.

Thinking that I had better feed my crew while things
were quiet and peaceful, I turned the wheel over to Cap-
tain Weems and transferred my activities to the galley.
When I returned to the pilothouse some time later, we

160 Sea Diver

were about halfway through the channel. There was not
a habitation or a sign of life to be seen on Tortuga’s steep
sides, smothered in a tangle of jungle growth. There were
no signs of road or path, no fortifications left from pirate
days; not even a boat was visible along its rocky shore.
However, several miles distant, on the Haitian shore, we
could see a small town nestled against a towering moun-
tain. We identified it as the old, historic French city of
Port Paix.

I picked up the binoculars and scanned the shore,
comparing it with the chart spread before me, seeking
various landmarks mentioned in Columbus’s Journal of
that long-ago December in 1492, when he had sailed the
very same route. This was the land Columbus had called
Espanola because it reminded him of Castile.

Nearly five centuries had passed since he had gazed
upon the same steep coastline. On the morning of De-
cember sixth, Santa Maria and Nina had passed the west-
ern cape of Hispaniola and glimpsed Tortuga in the dis-

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Sea Diver’s approach to Cap Haitien.

Search for the Santa Maria 161

tance. Pinta, the third ship of the little fleet, had deserted
her sister ships more than two weeks before; and, under
the command of Martin Alonso Pinzén, had set out to seek
Baneque, an unknown island to the northeast, where the
Indians had assured them they would find gold. There had
been no further word of the Pinta.

Columbus’s Journal of that voyage had been our con-
stant companion since we had first conceived the idea of
our own twentieth-century voyage of discovery; and I now
leafed through it, seeking the parts which described his
passage along these shores. My eye caught the name Isla
de la Tortuga. I read, “That island seemed to be very high
land, not filled with mountains, level like lovely fields. . . .”
I swept the ragged cliffs of Tortuga with my glasses. Where
were these Elysian fields today?

Columbus wrote that he had anchored in a protected
harbor on the north shore of Hispaniola, opposite the
western point of Tortuga. “He was anxious to examine the
strait between these two islands in order to view the
island of Espafiola, which is the loveliest thing in the
world,” I read. But the two ships had contrary winds, and
a whole week elapsed before they were able to continue
on their way. In the meantime “he set up a great cross at
the entrance of the harbor on the western side, on a very
conspicuous height, as a sign, he says, that your highnesses
hold this land as your own, and especially as an emblem of
Jesus Christ, Our Lord, and to the honor of Christendom.”

From Moustique bay, Columbus had gone only a few
miles and anchored once more, this time near the mouth of
a river. This appeared to be Trois Riviéres, just west of Port
Paix. There he had explored a beautiful valley which
he called Val Paraiso, lying at the base of his Cabo del
Elefante. It was easy to identify these places—Port Paix
with the Elephant, which was Haut Titon, towering four
thousand feet above it.

162 Sea Diver

Here Columbus lingered two days, getting acquainted
with the Indians and seeking information as to gold. He
found the Indians very friendly, once they had overcome
their shyness. He noted, “they are the best people in the
world and beyond all the mildest. . . . They were all stout
and valiant, and not feeble like the others whom he had
previously found and with very pleasant voices.”

“This land,” his Journal recorded, “is very cool and
the best that tongue can describe. It is very lofty and on
the highest mountain, oxen could plough and all could be
made like the plains and valleys. In all Castile there is no
land which could be compared to this for beauty and fer-
bility fo.

When his two ships set out once more, the wind was
blowing straight at them from the east, just as we were en-
countering it today. But whereas we were able to forge
ahead under diesel power at a steady eight knots, the two
square-riggers had been forced to tack back and forth all
day long without making much progress.

The sun had now risen ahead of us in blinding splen-
dor. The strong northeast wind kept the anemometer
between eighteen and twenty-five knots; and as we ap-
proached the eastern end of the channel; Sea Diver once
more began to pitch and roll. I found a secure seat amid-
ships and braced myself against the cabin top. Vital, Bill,
and Clayton soon followed me on deck and stretched out
on the wide stern seat, eyes closed and pained expressions
upon their faces. Captain Weems and Ed were firmly
planted in the pilothouse, deep in navigation problems. As
the sun rose higher, the heavy mists which enveloped the
mountains mingled with the clouds and rolled across the
mountaintops. I gazed shoreward across the tossing waters
until I could almost see the bellying sails and high poops
of the ancient flagship and the slighter, more graceful
caravel as they tacked across the wind toward me.

Search for the Santa Maria 163

It was now past eight o’clock, and Tortuga was well
behind us. As the sun gradually burned through the heavy
haze, it high-lighted certain areas of the wooded moun-
tainside, disclosing scattered huts and steep, narrow trails
twisting up to the heights. The secondary ranges, pale
violet shadows in the background, were revealed now and
then as the swirling mists on the crests melted into the low-
hung clouds, which broke up in fast-changing patterns in
the winds from the ocean.

As I watched, I suddenly saw revealed in these twist-
ing vapors of mist and cloud the shape of a cross—a large,
heavy cross such as Columbus might have erected to claim
these lands for his queen. It hung there in the sky for a long
interval while I stared at it spellbound, scarcely daring to
breathe. Then its base began to curl and fray at the edges,
and it melted away into the rising mist. Soon the whole ap-
parition had vanished.

I blinked my eyes several times and looked back at
the water between Sea Diver and the shore, half expecting
to see Santa Maria and Niifia, sails full set, driving in our
direction. But the sea was blank. I surveyed the three su-
pine sailors on the aft deck. They still lay with closed eyes
and resigned expressions. I was sure they had not looked
skyward for some time.

Had I really seen the cross in the heavens?

I made my way back to the wheelhouse to see if Ed or
Captain Weems had noticed it, but they were still occupied
with charts and navigation instruments. They smiled a little
condescendingly when I told them of my vision, as if to
say, “Might as well humor the poor girl.”

We spent the next three hours picking out landmarks
and identifying their present names with those which Co-
lumbus had given them as he came upon them on that first
voyage: Cabo de Torres, now Cap du Borgne; Cabo Alto

164 Sea Diver

y Bajo, now Limbe point; and Dos Hermanos, for the twin
peaks we could see ahead.

By this time we had picked out Cap Haitien, which
was our goal, far in the distance. It appeared just as Co-
lumbus had described it, a mountain “which juts into the
sea and which from a distance, owing to a ravine which
there is on the land side, seems to be an island apart. He
named it Monte Caribata—it is very lovely and full of trees,
a vivid green.”

Ed and Captain Weems were as thrilled as I, as we
traced the identical course which the Santa Maria had
sailed in the last eventful days before her destruction. Be-
cause Columbus's ships were forced to sail against the
wind, it took him until sunset of the second day before
“he entered a harbor which was between the island of San
Tomas and Cabo Caribata.”

Although Sea Diver was well out at sea, in order to
avoid striking any of the reefs which our chart indicated
nearer shore, we could still make out Rat island, which
Columbus had called La Amiga. It marked the entrance
to Puerto de la Mar de San Tomas, present-day Acul bay,
one of the prettiest and most protected anchorages in the
world. Columbus had written a very painstaking account
of how to reach it through the dangerous outer reefs. He
claimed that “now this surpassed all, and in it all the ships
of the world could lie and be secure, with the oldest cable
on board a ship it would be held fast.”

We could see only a small portion of the harbor, for
it lay in the shelter of Cap Haitien. Behind it, many miles
to the south, we identified the square-crested mountain-
top which is the Citadel, that tremendous fortress three
thousand feet in the sky, built by the black Emperor Henri
Christophe early in the nineteenth century.

It was from this landlocked harbor of San Tomas,

Search for the Santa Maria 165

four days after his arrival, that Columbus set out with the
two ships for an Indian village on the far side of Cabo
Caribata, where lived the Indian king, Guacanagari. For
the four preceding days the Spaniards had been joined
by Guacanagari’s people in revelry and feasting. It was
now the day before Christmas, and the white men planned
to celebrate the holiday ashore at the Indian settlement.

“The Admiral felt secure from banks and rocks,” ac-
cording to the Journal, “because on the Sunday, when he
sent the boats to that king, they had passed a full three
leagues and a half to the east of the said Punta Santa, and
the sailors had seen all the coast and the shoals that there
are from the said Punta Santa to the east southeast for a
full three leagues, and they had found where it was pos-
sible to pass; he had not done this during the whole voy-

age.

Before sunrise, the two ships weighed anchor with a
land breeze. Although the prevailing winds along this
north coast blow mainly from the northeast and east, mak-
ing it most difficult for an eastbound sailing ship to make
any headway, there is a short period each day in the early
morning when the breeze blows from the land. It is at this
time, even today, that sailing ships leave port to get clear
of the shore.

So it was that early morning as Santa Maria and Nina
maneuvered to clear the reefs and shoals at the mouth of
Acul bay. Then, finding themselves with little wind, and
that coming from the east, it took them the whole day and
part of the night to reach the northeast end of Cap Haitien,
which Columbus called Punta Santa.

As Sea Diver skirted the rocky hillsides of Cap Haitien,
we could pick out ahead of us Punta Santa, now Picolet
point. Crumbling stone fortifications from French colonial
days dotted the steeps; and as we came abreast of the point
itself, a lighthouse appeared halfway up the slope, look-

166 Sea Diver

ing eerily like a mechanical man standing guard over the
entrance to the harbor.

It was eleven o'clock on Christmas Eve, Columbus
noted in his Journal, that “he was distant one league” from
this point. The account continued, “Our Lord willed that
at midnight as they had seen the Admiral lie down and
rest, and as they saw that it was a dead calm and that the
sea was like a small bowl, all should lie down to sleep,
and the rudder was left in the hand of that boy (a young
ship's grummet ), and the currents which were swift car-
ried the ship upon one of these banks.”

Thus calmly did the Journal announce the disaster
which resulted in the loss of the Santa Maria.

From Sea Diver's position off the seaward side of
Point Picolet, we tried to reconstruct what had happened.
When Columbus's ships had reached this spot, they must
have changed course toward Guacanagari'’s village, which
apparently lay several miles distant close to the inner shore
of the large harbor that stretched before us. We could see
many breaking reefs ahead to starboard. They formed a
wide semicircle which curved away toward the distant
shore.

We could not understand how Columbus, in the dead
of night, had had the temerity to sail into completely
strange waters, knowing that there were reefs in his path.
The sailors who had explored the route the previous day
must have been aware of the dangerous waters they must
cross. Surely they would have warned their master. And
yet the Santa Maria had sailed on, with both Columbus
and the master of the ship asleep and only a ship’s boy to
guide the boat!

Could this be the same Great Navigator who had led
his ships across three thousand miles of unknown ocean to
the shores of an unknown land, and then guided them with
admirable judgment and ability through the intricate Ba-

Search for the Santa Maria 167

hama passages to the reef-bound shores of Cuba? How
could he have been so careless as to enter a reef-strewn
harbor at midnight, knowing only that on the far side he
would find an anchorage near a low, sandy shore?

Had he celebrated too freely the past few days as he
entertained Guacanagari and his people in quiet Acul bay?
Could he and his men have been sleeping off the effects
of late hours and too much liquor, that he would risk his
ship in such a fashion? Ed and Captain Weems could offer
no other explanation.

I proffered the lame excuse that perhaps Santa Maria
was following Nifia, and that only the lead ship had car-
ried any pilots. Because she was a smaller ship with less
draft, Nifia had either sailed over or skirted the reef with-
out her crew being aware of it, while Santa Maria, only a
few yards to port or starboard of her course, was unlucky
enough to go aground.

We ceased our speculations as Ed checked the harbor
chart and then turned Sea Diver to follow the eastern shore
of the peninsula into the bay, where we could just discern
a white blotch at the base of high green mountains which
was the city of Cap Haitien. About three hundred yards to
our starboard the rocky hillside sloped steeply into the sea.

Fortunately we saw the two black buoys on our star-
board bow in time. Checking with our chart, we found
that they marked the western edge of Le Grand Mouton
bank, a large shoal area directly in the center of the har-
bor entrance. How easy it would have been in the days
before the shoal was buoyed, to strike it, for the terrain,
with its steep banks leading down to the water's edge,
promised deep water for some distance out. Had Columbus
erred by striking this bank in the night, it would be un-
derstandable. But according to all accounts we had read,
the Santa Maria had been headed in a more easterly di-
rection across the harbor.

168 Sea Diver

‘s[BOYS IOATIS OY} 7e UrIE}deO s IBATC eI

apt auvf fiq 004d

‘seuleyegd oY} Ul 1OYoue 78 IOATC] VIS

The Links aboard Blue Heron the winter the diving bug bit. William,
Clayton, the author and Ed.

Florida Keys Photo Service, Marathon, Fla.

Barney, Jane and Pete examine coral-encrusted relics from
the Looe.

The author about to make a
dive.

Bill Thompson happily dis-
plays a bar found beneath

cannon on ocean floor.

Florida Keys Photo Service, Marathon, Fla.

Se

eS .

Author looking for a cannon.

Helmeted divers use jetting
hose on remains of 1733 wreck.

Mark Kauffman—courtesy LIFE magazine, Copr. 1953 TIME Inc.

‘SSUIPUY 9JESNSOAUT 0} MOTIOF AYO
WIV pue ojog oI yoorm ystuedg jo jse[[eq reeu 10}00}0p 10}eMJ9puN sasn Pa

‘OUT AWLL SS6L (Adon ‘aurzpspw TaqTT fisazinoo—upwufinvy y.0W

Art McKee with pewter
plates and battle axe from
Spanish wreck.

At right and below: cor-
roded pieces of eight and

coral-encrusted keys from
wreck.

Two photos: Mark Kauffman—courtesy
LIFE magazine, Copr. 1953 TIME Inc.

Ge avales. ama COararon Edranasc oo

d la flora eloia JO: Be ON as IS:

nid el olin gue if /
USO, Ze OL 3 S

Hen

SA SS NZ

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Court of the Smithsonian Institution
This ancient chart of the 1733 hurricane wrecks, made in 1766,
differs from other Spanish documents as to the names and the
number of the ships involved. It was obtained from the British
Museum.

‘syueg vueyeg Y}10uU 9y}
uo sdiyg weryiA, ureydeg Aq pozeooy syxoorm very} Jo Weyo ArnjU90-YUEE}UAAES

uounqysuy ubvuosyyims ay} fo fisazunog

¥ S
= Bure yee
: PT fo pi
dns Nerey panel toner 4 poo mi pepe oY uf )
Woyotgest gancl Su HW NS : PHO) yfreds
gv) 310.) funy
Ges
= 20s : re) : soe) feos oy)
X a =
wD mF
ADH. && . y P I a 0 [{)
Momeys si pay y uy WW . €
EO pvt.
t Oy
ISPopeyy aroosh OUP MONE sporty da
of orb Jp oounp veny oe & Yoorat soddo- Hy) ) wee uz 4 a
FEE GI sunt 4 i : fot ol
‘bina 1M pood Sh ogy
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i € 4 : . : f pet wy: a ) ti or x nes
a | Ce ai)
Prat aor yuoym i Ce ae a
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Feo moyen my) oe OF MIG RY Pup) Mon dey BY
B - € ye Sok °
ssddiyy ‘diy fo pina :

ay] dopa: noms $2,304) ) 1H hy way eee

moi AYIA UG BUTE Y 26 ayes ([ © I 1yd. I. u fp ‘Vv

et ocaaa “oom

Bill, the author, Clayton and Ed on aft deck of Sea Diver upon arrival at Cap
Haitien.

x

Peter Stackpole—courtesy LIFE

magazine, Copr. 1955 TIME Inc.

Captain Weems charts Sea Diver’s course as Ed pilots vessel.

ee

QU RORS
so

Kemp guides us close to
reefs in Cap Haitien harbor.

Two photos: Peter Stackpole—courtesy LIFE magazine, Copr. 1955 TIME Inc.

Clayton dives on two can-
non at Cap Haitien.

Ed poises crowbar over old
anchor nearly buried in
coral reef.

Ed about to salvage old
anchor, later identified as
probably having come from
Columbus’s Santa Maria.

Two photos: Peter Stackpole—courtesy LIFE magazine, Copr. 1955 TIME Inc.

Captain Weems and Ed prepare to raise anchor from nineteenth-century wreck.

Captain Weems, Ed and I
study evidence that we
have found anchor from
Santa Maria.

Prefect Sam receives anchor
from Ed, while U. S. Am-
bassador Davis, Captain
Weems and author look on.

Anchor in Port-au-Prince
museum, found during
eighteenth century in
Grande Riviere, and said to
have come from Santa
Maria.

Three photos: Peter Stackpole—courtesy
LIFE magazine, Copr. 1955 TIME Inc.

Author back aboard Reef
Diver after inspecting “lone
rock” which identified gen-
eral location of Spanish
treasure wreck. Below:
Kemp and Vital rig mag-
netometer off Reef Diver’s
stern.

Peter Stackpole—courtesy LIFE magazine, Copr. 1955 TIME Ine.

View of Caicos giving impression of “many islands,” as described by Columbus, at
a place close to where we believe his first landfall in America was made.

Point of land which could easily be converted to an island fortress, and harbor
“no more disturbed than the water in a well,” such as Columbus described; near}
Lorimer creek, Caicos islands.

As we steered a careful course between Le Grand
Mouton and shore, we could see on our port clear to the
horizon the breaking white reefs which protect the inner
harbor from the sea. Somewhere out there the Santa Maria
had gone aground. Somewhere beneath those foaming
breakers lay what was left of Columbus's ill-fated flag-
ship. Now that we were so close to our goal, I wondered
again: Could we possibly find that historic wreck after
463 years?

Search for the Santa Maria 169

If Colonel Max Chassagne, chief of the
Haitian Army in northern Haiti, had not given us tem-
porary permission to explore for the Santa Maria exactly
when he did that Saturday afternoon before Easter, I
doubt if we would ever have found the ancient anchor, sym-
bol of Columbus’s first visit to the Antilles. And if Captain
Weems, with unflagging enthusiasm, had not kept hot on
the trail of the officials responsible for granting that per-
mission, I’m sure Ed would have given up in despair and
sailed on to our next objective, the Silver shoals.

We had been in the harbor at Cap Haitien since
Wednesday. The day after our arrival we had moved Sea
Diver from her anchorage in the open road, where we had
bounced about considerably in the choppy waters, to the
small inner harbor close to the sea wall which flanked the
town. Here we were well sheltered from wind and sea by
the municipal dock to our north and a small cay just east
of us.

Several seagoing sloops from Turks island, the native

170 Sea Diver

trading ships of this island area, were anchored near us.
They furnished constant entertainment as the colorful fam-
ilies aboard them went about the business of living on a
small boat—cooking their meals on deck over smoking
charcoal fires, hanging their washing in the rigging, and
joining in tuneful calypso as they sat about the decks in
the cool of the evening.

Since the afternoon of our arrival, Captain Weems and
Ed had been occupied in chasing from one office to an-
other in a vain effort to get our search under way. Every-
one they approached had been most courteous. But noth-
ing happened.

Unfortunately for us, it was Holy Week, a week of
Haitian celebration. We found the afternoon of our arrival
that all public offices, both in Cap Haitien and in the capi-
tol city of Port-au-Prince, were closed for the next two
days. On Saturday morning they would open briefly, then
close their doors again for the remainder of the week-
end.

André LeBon, assistant U.S. consul, with an office at
the Royal Netherlands Steamship Agency near the water
front, had been most co-operative. He had helped Ed tele-
graph the American Embassy in Port-au-Prince, after sev-
eral attempts to reach them by phone had failed. Captain
Weems, listening to the one phone call which Ed was able
to get through, counted thirty-seven “hello’s” and twenty-
eight “Can you hear me’s?” on Ed’s part. When the call
was finished, Ed had still been unable to get his message
across. Now he wired:

CAPT WEEMS AND MYSELF SEARCHING COLUMBUS VOY-
AGES, ALSO THINK WE COULD FIND REMAINS OF SANTA
MARIA, LAST YEAR OUR EXPEDITION WAS CLEARED FOR
THIS SEARCH AT CAP HAITIEN AND CONSUL ADVISED
THROUGH SECRETARY DULLES BUT WE WERE UNABLE
TO COME. WOULD YOU CHECK WITH AUTHORITIES TO

Search for the Santa Maria 171

MAKE SURE THERE IS NO OBJECTION TO MAKE SEARCH
NOW? LIFE MAGAZINE SENDING REPRESENTATIVE TO
REPORT AND MAKE PICTURE RECORD FOR FEATURE IN
LIFE. IMMEDIATE ACTION NECESSARY. E. A. LINK

He received a reply the following day from Ambassa-
dor Roy T. Davis:

FOREIGN OFFICE STATES DUE HOLIDAYS WILL BE UNABLE
TO ARRANGE CLEARANCE BEFORE SATURDAY MORNING.
SUGGEST CONTACT ANDRE LEBON. DAVIS.

As we were already in close touch with André LeBon,
who was as helpless as ourselves, we waited impatiently
for Saturday to come. Meanwhile Ed occupied himself
with a few of the many jobs aboard Sea Diver that only
he could do—assembling and checking gear for searching
and diving, and installing the magnetometer in Reef Diver
so that it could be operated from the smaller craft.

While Ed, assisted by Vital and Kemp, labored aboard,
Captain Weems escorted Bill, Clayton, and myself on many
forays into Cap Haitien. Known to its inhabitants as Le
Cap, this interesting town had an air of the Old World,
with its narrow streets and tall, shuttered doors opening
directly on the sidewalks. Seated in the doorways, ill-clad
women of every degree of color, many big with child,
nursed naked babies at their breasts as they watched the
toddlers playing at their feet and the noisy antics of the
older children who raced about the narrow streets. Within
the doors we caught glimpses of newspaper-covered walls,
a clutter of poor furniture and scattered clothing, in small
connecting rooms, one behind the other.

Here and there, the solid, pastel-tinted fronts of the
houses gave way to empty spaces, where broken founda-
tion stones of old buildings lay almost concealed by en-
veloping green vines. The cobbled streets were fashioned
from ballast stone, brought to Cap Haitien from all parts

G2, Sea Diver

of the world to be replaced by cargoes of sugar and other
products of the island. At the street crossings we stepped
over the barrels of old cannon, now being utilized as curb-
stones.

It did not take us long to discover that although Cap
Haitien is a city rich in history, there are few landmarks
left of its early days. A brief review of the island’s stormy
past soon told us why.

Navidad, Columbus’s first settlement in the New
World, was created of necessity following the loss of the
Santa Maria. It did not endure very long, for when Colum-
bus returned from Spain the following year with ships and
men to reinforce the Spanish colony, he found that the
colonists he had left behind had been massacred and the
town destroyed. He then selected a location farther east
along the coast in what is now the Dominican Republic,
nearer the region where gold was to be found. Thus the
white man’s occupancy in the area of Cap Haitien died a
quick death.

Unbelievably, within fifteen years of the Spaniards’
arrival, all but a few thousand of the three hundred thou-
sand Indians who had inhabited the island had been en-
slaved and destroyed. Western Hispaniola, with its rugged
mountain terrain, became a neglected land, for as soon as
the quick fortunes to be obtained from gold and enslaved
manpower began to dwindle, the bulk of the Spanish ad-
venturers moved on to the riches of Mexico and South
America.

It was inevitable at this time that pirates should ap-
pear in adjoining seas to harry the richly laden ships which
sailed constantly for Spain. Tortuga Island, with its un-
approachable shores and mountain fastnesses, became a
haven for the rough characters who manned the pirate
ships. Wandering to the shores of Hispaniola in search of

Search for the Santa Maria 173

wild cattle to be killed and smoked to supply their vessels,
many of the buccaneers eventually settled there. Gradu-
ally the superior numbers of French in the area asserted
themselves until, at the end of the seventeenth century,
Spain yielded control of the western part of Hispaniola
to France.

The French colony grew rapidly, with Cap Francois
(now Cap Haitien) as its core. The rich lands, cultivated
by the constant importation of Negro slaves, produced
quantities of sugar cane, tobacco, sisal and cotton. Under
the capable management of these French settlers, Saint
Dominique became the richest colony in the New World.

By 1789 the French Revolution had spread to Saint
Dominique. A decade of struggle followed, during which
a large number of the white population were murdered
and their plantations destroyed. Toussaint L’Ouverture, a
former slave himself, had scarcely established order as a
leader of his people, when Napoleon, who could not see his
richest colony lost without a struggle, sent five thousand
veteran soldiers and a vast fleet of ships to retrieve the
province. There followed a series of struggles culminating
in a battle just outside Cap Francois, in which the Negro
leader, Dessalines, defeated the French and established
the independence of Saint Dominique. It was renamed
Haiti, the original Indian name, meaning “high land.”

Once more the new Negro republic started to rebuild
the capital city, and by 1820, at the death of Henri Chris-
tophe, much of it had been restored. Then Cap Haitien
stagnated under a succession of poor rulers until a fateful
day twenty years later, when a terrible earthquake tore
great fissures in the land and at the bottom of the sea,
creating a tidal wave which inundated the lower part of
the city. Fire broke out among the crumbled ruins, and
once again the ill-starred city was destroyed. It never re-
covered from this last blow, and the new town which gradu-

174 Sea Diver

ally evolved was a poor one in comparison to the splendor
of the earlier city.

At last Saturday morning arrived. Ed and Captain
Weems hurried to the office of M. LeBon with every ex-
pectation of finding a message from Port-au-Prince, giving
us permission to start out on our search with Sea Diver.
They came back disappointed. Not wishing to waste any
more time waiting around, Ed set out with Bill in Reef
Diver for a small island in the bay where he could try out
the magnetometer equipment, leaving Captain Weems to
deal with problems ashore.

They had no sooner gone than a telegram arrived:

FOREIGN OFFICE STATES YOUR PRESENCE PORT AU
PRINCE NECESSARY. SUGGEST YOU COME MONDAY.
AMERICAN EMBASSY.

Captain Weems and I were appalled. There was no
plane to Port-au-Prince until Monday afternoon. Life
magazine was sending a photographer and a reporter the
first of the week. William and Clayton must return to
school the following weekend. And we were committed
to leave for the Silver shoals the week after that. Further-
more, I knew Ed, never a patient man, would blow his top
at this new obstacle to his plans. He would never spend
three days of the coming week making a trip to the capital.

The moment was crucial. Captain Weems set out to
find Colonel Chassagne, who, we were told, was the only
official in the province with sufficient power to act. Our
story interested the colonel to such an extent that he in-
sisted upon returning to Sea Diver with the captain. He
viewed our equipment with great interest and, before he
left, agreed to let us start out the next morning with the
understanding that we would return to Cap Haitien and
continue our efforts to secure permission from Port-au-
Prince on Monday.

Search for the Santa Maria 175

We sailed from our anchorage at eight
o clock on Easter morning with high hopes and exuberant
spirits. At last we were headed for the reefs in the outer
harbor, where the Santa Maria was supposed to lie]

There was already a brisk wind from the northeast,
and as we worked our way toward Picolet point, Sea Diver's
bow rose and fell to the long ocean swells. Reef Diver fol-
lowed docilely along at the end of a forty-foot towline.
We were uncertain as to how much sea she would take, as
this was our first experience at towing her in the open
ocean, but we found that she rode easily and well.

Ed and Captain Weems had plotted the course which
they thought Columbus might have taken on that far-off
night before Christmas. Three miles from Picolet point
they had drawn a course of 130 degrees to the western end
of the Limonade barrier reef, which encloses the entire
eastern section of Caracol harbor. From here the line angled
to 110 degrees, tracing a course through the deep-water
channel between the outer reef and the group of inner

176 Sea Diver

reefs, upon one of which Morison believed the Santa Maria
had come to grief.

Once on the heading from Picolet point, Ed engaged
the automatic pilot. Next he turned the switch on the
fathometer. The white chart showed no depth indication,
for the depth here was greater than the two hundred feet
it would record. He left it operating, however, so that he
would know the exact instant when Sea Diver reached
shallower water. He could then ascertain, from the depth
registered, our position in relation to the one hundred-
fathom line on the chart.

I looked at the many other instruments which crowded
the wheelhouse—the Sea Scanar, which would record not
only the depth of water beneath us, but also, when set at
an angle, all underwater obstructions within nine hundred
feet in any direction; and the radar, which turned night
into day by registering upon its screen every object of any
size on the surface within a radius of twenty-five miles,
besides giving an accurate measurement of the distance
between Sea Diver and these objects. There was the loran,
which would fix our position electronically far at sea, when
no land was to be seen; the radio compass, which could
be tuned to locate the direction of radio stations within a
long range; and the radiotelephone, with which we could
call for help in case of trouble.

And I thought of Columbus, starting out from Spain
with his three small sailing ships across unknown seas.
For his guidance he had had only a crude free-swinging
needle compass which oscillated so constantly that he
could only guess his exact direction, a sounding lead, and
perhaps an astrolabe to measure the angle of sun and stars,
although it is uncertain whether he was able to use this
instrument successfully until his later voyages.

Perhaps most important of all to our safety, Sea Diver
was equipped with a powerful diesel engine with which we

Search for the Santa Maria 177

could maneuver out of tight situations; whereas Colum-
bus, in the same close quarters, would have had to cope
with unco-operative winds and square-rigged sails, giving
him little chance to run away from trouble.

We had almost reached the outer barrier reef before
the fathometer began to register depths within its scope.
We altered our course at this point and glided slowly
along behind the outer reef, which foamed and broke
for miles. Somewhere among the scattered inner reefs to
our starboard must lie the remains of the Santa Maria, if
Morison’s prognostications were correct.

Ahead of us rose the lovely pavilion shape of Monte
Cristi and a whole chain of mountain peaks leading in-
land, while behind us was bold and beautiful Cap Haitien,
with the old city nestled at its base. To our south stretched
the low inner shore of the harbor, edged sometimes with
mangrove, sometimes with white sand beach, backed by
the fertile plains of the Vega Real, extending for miles to
the distant mountains.

As we passed behind the barrier reef, the rolling
ocean swells diminished. I inspected with interest the
three reefs to our starboard, distinctly marked by the white
breakers which charged upon them. These were the reefs
we expected to search. It was high tide, and the brown
patches of coral were underwater except for a scattering
of knobby heads. Floating lengths of bamboo attached to
hemp lines marked the locations of fish traps placed by
the local fishermen.

We continued to the end of the third reef before mak-
ing a wide circle to starboard, and then dropped anchor be-
hind the middle reef. Here we found the sea much quieter,
with two lines of coral between us and the ocean. The wind
was blowing more and more strongly from the northeast,
however, and we realized it would soon be too rough to
search in the vicinity of the reefs.

178 Sea Diver

72°10!

NA. ..Picolet Pt.
‘(PUNTA SANTA)
3a

.

-
&e

a y
L SEA DIVER

ANCHORAGE

Habitation Limonade
Bellevue \ Bord de Mer

Wary

yiere

HISPANIOLA

Se

Fosse Ri

Harbor at Cap Haitien showing Sea Diver’s anchorage behind
reef where Santa Maria was thought to have been destroyed.

Reef Diver was pulled hurriedly alongside, and in a
matter of moments Ed, Captain Weems and Bill, with
Kemp at the wheel, had started off to make a quick survey
of the area which they had selected as having the best
possibilities.

I picked up Columbus's Journal and leafed through
the pages, seeking to refresh my memory as to the events
of the shipwreck.

The ship went upon it [the reef] so gently
that it was hardly noticed. The boy who felt the
rudder ground, and heard the sound of the sea,
shouted, and at his cries, the Admiral came out
and was so quick that no one had yet realized that
they were aground. Immediately the master of the

Search for the Santa Maria 179

ship, whose watch it was, came out and the Admiral
told him and the others to launch the boat which
they carried at the stern, and they took an anchor
and threw it astern, and he with many others
jumped into the boat, and the Admiral thought that
they had done that which he had ordered them to
do.

Juan de la Cosa had not obeyed the admiral, however,
but had jumped into the small boat and set out for the
caravel Nifia, which was lying half a league away.

The caravel would not take them aboard,
therein acting rightly, and on this account they re-
turned to the ship, but the boat of the caravel
reached her first. When the Admiral saw that they
were running away and that it was his crew, and
that the water was growing shallower and that the
ship was now lying broadside to the sea, as he saw
no other remedy, he ordered the mast to be cut and
the ship to be lightened as far as possible, in order to
discover if they could draw her off. And as the
water became shallower still, he was unable to save
her, and she lay on her side, broadside on to the sea,
although there was little or no sea running, and then
the hatches came open, but the ship remained whole.

The Admiral went to the caravel, in order to
place the crew of the ship on the caravel, and as a
light breeze was now blowing from land, and there
also still remained much of the night and they did
not know how far the banks extended, he hung off
until it was day and then went to the ship from
within the line of the bank.

When morning came, Columbus sent a boat ashore to
find his friend Guacanagari:

who had his town inland, about a league and a half
from the said bank. When he heard the news, they say
that he wept and sent all his people from the town

180 Sea Diver

with very large canoes and many of them to take off
everything that was in the ship. This was done and
everything was taken from the decks in a very short
space of time. So great was the great haste and dili-
gence which that king showed! And he in person, with
his brothers and relatives, were active both on the
ship and in guarding that which was brought to land,
so that everything might be very safely kept.

From time to time Guacanagari

sent one of his relatives to the weeping Admiral, to
console him, telling him that he must not be troubled
or annoyed, that he would give him whatever he pos-
sessed. . . . He commanded everything to be placed
near the houses, while some houses which he wished
to give were emptied, that there everything could be
placed and guarded. He ordered armed men to be
set around everything to keep watch all night. He and
all the people with him wept.

Columbus must have been truly moved by all this
kindness, for he wrote:

They are a people so full of love and without greed,
and suitable for every purpose, so that I assure your
highnesses that I believe that in the world there is
no better race or better land. They love their neigh-
bors as themselves, and they have the sweetest voices
in the world, and soft, and always they are smiling.

Well might the Indians have wept with Columbus.
Not only for the calamity that had befallen him, but for
themselves—sweet-natured, innocent, defenseless people,
welcoming the white men into their midst as brothers,
sharing with them their homes and substance. Had they
realized that in a few years’ time scarcely any of them
would survive, would they still have come so generously
and lovingly to the aid of these strangers?

Search for the Santa Maria 181

The kindly Arawaks, having set aside some houses for
the homeless crew, spent the next few days ferrying the
Spaniards back and forth between the stranded Santa
Maria and shore, to salvage everything that would be of
use to them. Then the white men and their helpers re-
moved as many of the ship’s timbers as possible, to build
a fort and a tower as Columbus ordered, for a good por-
tion of the crew must now stay behind when he returned
to Spain. These men were not unhappy, however, for they
looked forward to spending the intervening time until Co-
lumbus’s return the following year in accumulating a rich
hoard to take back to Spain.

The admiral, with only one ship left, desired only to
reach home safely, to report his discoveries and to return
with more ships and colonizers. He would carry enough
gold and other evidences of the wealth of this new world
to convince Queen Isabella that another expedition would
be worth her while.

The two groups worked amicably together during the
succeeding days as Columbus prepared the Nifia for her
journey, loading her with firewood and water and avail-
able foods. He planned to explore the coastline to the east
as he went along, so that he could make a full report as
to the size and geography of the island to his queen. It
was during this time that some itinerant Indians brought
word that the missing Pinta had been seen at anchor in a
river mouth far to the east.

Two days before Nifia was to sail, Columbus demon-
strated the power of the guns he was leaving with his men.
A lombard was loaded and fired into the side of the stranded
Santa Maria where she lay in the harbor. The ball passed
through her hull and on across the water for some dis-
tance. Then the Spaniards, in full armor, staged a combat
on the beach. Although the admiral explained to Guacana-
gari that the artillery would be useful against his Carib

182 Sea Diver

enemies to the south, he intended it as a warning that the
men he was leaving behind would be well able to look
after themselves.

When Columbus sailed, he left thirty-nine men in the
fortress which had been built, along with “all the mer-
chandise which the sovereigns commanded to be brought
for purposes of barter, and this was much, in order that
they might deal and exchange it for gold, with all that had
been brought from the ship. He left them also bread, bis-
cuit for a year and wine and much artillery, and the boat
of the ship. . . . He left them also some seeds to sow, and
his officials, the escribano and the alguacil, and with them
a ship’s carpenter and a caulker and a good gunner who
well understood machines, and a cooper, and a doctor, and
a tailor, and all, as he says, seamen.”

The little settlement was called La Villa de Navidad,
because the events leading to its founding had occurred
on Christmas Eve.

This, then, was the story of what was probably the
most famous and important shipwreck in history, for it
resulted in the founding of the first European settlement
in the New World, and thus established Spain’s rights with
the Holy See to this part of the earth for several centuries
to come. Had Columbus returned to Spain without leaving
this seed of colonization, it seems very possible that Portu-
gal or England, which were already planning similar ex-
peditions into the unknown, might well have established
their claims first.

Reef Diver's high-pitched whine as she coursed up and
down near the reef slowly penetrated my consciousness
and brought me back to the fact that it was Easter, 1955,
and that I was sitting on Sea Diver's aft deck with a book
in my hand. From our anchorage I could just see the spire
of the church at Limonade Bord de Mer, several miles

Search for the Santa Maria 183

away on the barren, sandy shore. It was this little fishing
village which Morison had picked as being close to the
original site of Navidad. Others believed, however, that
Columbus's settlement had been part of an Indian village
inland, probably on the banks of one of the rivers which
emptied into the harbor. The shore was too far away to
make out any details, but I resolved to investigate it more
closely before we had completed our search for Santa
Maria.

Reef Diver had by now returned from her preliminary
survey. As she came alongside, Bill climbed aboard, and
Clayton and I quickly dropped from the rail into the
smaller boat. We wasted no time, but headed once more
toward the reefs, for the sea was becoming constantly
rougher.

Ed and Captain Weems had tired of staring through
the glass bottom, so Clayton and I took over the watching
posts in the cabin, stretching ourselves upon our stomachs
on the airfoam bunks to gaze down through the glass panels
in the bow. I found that the sea bottom on these north
Haitian reefs had a character all its own. The clean white
sand to which we had become accustomed in the Florida
keys and the Bahamas was missing. In its place was a hard-
looking composition, almost covered with clumps of kelp
and grass. I saw large clumps of stag coral towering from
the lowest depths, tangles of finer coral forming hiding
places for brilliant small fish which darted in and out, and
the usual yellow and purple sea fans and Gorgonia. There
were no big fish, which surprised me, and only a few small
grouper and blue parrot fish. Clayton caught a glimpse of
a leopard ray and a small barracuda, just before he turned
over his watching post to Captain Weems.

That morning, on our way from Cap Haitien, we had
reviewed what we might find of Santa Maria's remains by
means of this surface scanning. Long ago the ship's tim-

184 Sea Diver

bers must have disappeared, eaten by teredo worms, loos-
ened and washed away in rough seas, or possibly covered
with sand. There could have been little metal on this early
ship—a few cannon; cannon balls, if they had not been
removed by the survivors; possibly an anchor or two; and
a limited number of fastenings and spikes, which would
have held the key timbers together. The only other fine
dication which might be visible from the surface would
be the ballast stone which the Santa Maria must have car-
ried.

And then Captain Weems and I thought we saw them!
A scattering of irregular-shaped rocks! We were past them
before we could be sure, so we asked Kemp to turn back
over the spot once more. Yes, it was ballast stone, accord-
ing to Ed, who came in from the cockpit to verify our find.
The stones were scattered over a wide area, and only in
one place, where the bottom coral seemed to be broken
away, could they be seen in any quantity. I also saw some
coral-covered shapes at the edge of this break, which, it
was easy to conjecture, might be the stock of an anchor
or metal fittings from the ship. From the look of the coral
at this spot, Ed surmised it must be a very old wreck.

At this point he returned to the cockpit to ascertain
our exact location on the reef. He found that we were on
the northwest side of the first reef, a most logical place for
a vessel to strike, coming in from the open sea in the dead
of night as Columbus had. A later check showed it to be
almost exactly on one of the spots selected by Dr. Morison
as a likely place for the Santa Maria to have gone down.

Our hopes were high, that Easter Sunday noon, that
we had found the historic flagship. Earlier, in making our
plans, we had acknowledged that we were apt to find the
remains of several wrecks in this area, and that our problem
might be to ascertain which was that of the Santa Maria.
Surprisingly, this was the only bit of wreckage we had

Search for the Santa Maria 185

sighted in our combing of the reefs. It would require much
investigation and checking to verify whether it was indeed
the right ship.

First of all, before anything was disturbed, we planned
to photograph the whole area. Then Ed would go over
the bottom with the underwater detector, seeking the pat-
tern of the wreckage beneath the coral. Captain Weems or
one of the boys would follow him, marking with bricks
any spots that indicated the presence of metal. Later they
would investigate these locations and remove whatever
might be there, hidden in the coral. It might be necessary
to dynamite lightly to break up certain coral formations
which otherwise refused to reveal their secrets. But dyna-
mite is destructive, and must be employed very carefully.
We would use it only after everything else had failed.

We headed back toward Sea Diver for lunch and
to secure the necessary equipment to dive upon the ballast.
By the time we had eaten, the wind was blowing out of
the northeast at twenty-five knots, preventing us from ex-
ploring the reef that afternoon. Before the end of the day
it had reached thirty-two. The high wind also forced us to
change our plan of returning to Cap Haitien for the night,
for we were doubtful as to how Reef Diver would make out,
trailing along behind us in the heavy following seas which
had built up in the ocean.

So we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in
dreaming and talking of the possibilities ahead of us. If
we had indeed come upon the Santa Maria, never had
we had such luck in locating the object of our search with
so little difficulty.

186 Sea Diver

We dropped our hook in Cap Haitien har-
bor about seven o'clock on Monday morning. We had risen
at dawn and set out from our anchorage behind the reefs
so that we would waste no time in obtaining final permis-
sion from the Haitian government to carry on our search.
Since our discovery of the ballast, we could hardly wait to
get overboard with our diving equipment to explore for
the Santa Maria, which we had convinced ourselves must
be there. We resented the waste of even another day.

Scarcely was our anchor down when we were hailed
from the shore. A Haitian voice informed us that the Cap-
tain of the Port wished to see Mr. Link immediately. Ed
went ashore to be met with a storm of disapproving words
from the port officer, but because the latter spoke in the
native tongue, Ed had to wait for an interpreter to inform
him exactly how he had displeased the captain. Why had
we exceeded our permission to go out on the reefs on Sun-
day by staying overnight? he was asked. Officialdom was
pacified when Ed explained that we had been afraid to risk
towing Reef Diver back in the heavy seas.

Search for the Santa Maria 187

Ed then headed for the cable office and wired the
American Embassy in Port-au-Prince, in answer to their
message requesting his presence there:

IMPOSSIBLE TO COME TO PORT AU PRINCE AS I HAVE
ONLY THIS WEEK LEFT FOR SEARCH AND TRIP WILL
CONSUME MOST OF THE TIME LEFT. I HAVE NOTHING
TO GAIN PERSONALLY BUT HAITI HAS MUCH IF SANTA
MARIA CAN BE FOUND. LIFE MAGAZINE REPORTERS AR-
RIVE TODAY AND WILL GIVE HAITI MUCH VALUABLE
PUBLICITY BUT IF WE CANNOT START TODAY ALL WILL
BE LOST. PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS TO HAITIAN AUTHORI-
TIES AND ADVISE. E. A. LINK

The morning and afternoon passed with no word
from Port-au-Prince. Then Kurt Beck came to our rescue.
M. Beck, German born but a Haitian citizen, was the pro-
prietor of a small hotel perched on the mountainside over-
looking the harbor. Hearing of our plans to search for the
Santa Maria through the newspapers, he had written us
before the start of our trip, offering any aid which he might
give. From the moment we introduced ourselves, he and
his wife and son exerted themselves to make our stay
pleasant and to help us.

That afternoon M. Beck took Captain Weems in his
car in search of Colonel Chassagne. When they could not
locate him, Beck suggested that they call on Prefect Guil-
Jaume Sam, governor of the province. They returned to Sea
Diver with the news that after much persuasion, Prefect
Sam had agreed to give us temporary permission to search,
starting the following day, until we should receive a defi-
nite yes or no from Port-au-Prince. We would have liked
to leave for the reefs immediately, but it was already late
in the afternoon and we realized the ocean would be too
rough to risk towing Reef Diver. We planned instead to
leave at daybreak the next morning.

To celebrate our apparent success, Captain Weems

188 Sea Diver

took us to dinner at the Hotel de Roi Christophe, one of
the historic places of the town, a walk of only a few blocks
from the harbor. We had downed some luscious crawfish
Thermidor and were attacking a delicious beef filet, when
M. Beck arrived to tell us that Prefect Sam had changed
his mind. The governor did not want to assume the re-
sponsibility of letting us search without sanction from
Port-au-Prince.

Our spirits hit bottom once more. Ed said quietly, but
with grim finality in his tone, “If we can't get permission
tonight so that we can go out tomorrow morning, I’m
through.” And we knew he meant it.

Captain Weems volunteered to make one last attempt
to locate Colonel Chassagne, who had been unreachable
all day. He and M. Beck departed, the steak dinner for-
gotten. Ed, Bill, Clayton and I disconsolately ate our des-
sert, drank our small cups of black Haitian coffee and
started back to Sea Diver.

But our bad luck had only begun. As we headed across
the harbor toward Sea Diver, a strong wind caught Reef
Diver and carried us into the shallow water close to the
sea wall. In full skirts and high heels for the first time
since my arrival, I was standing on the engine box when
the cruiser came to a violent stop, and I was catapulted
unexpectedly to the deck between the cabin and the en-
gine box. In the darkness we had struck the arm of an old
anchor which lay on the bottom and had punctured a hole
in our starboard bow. Fortunately the damage was above
the waterline and could be easily repaired.

I did not fare so well, however, for as I picked myself
up, I was aware of a very painful area high in my right side,
where I had struck against the dashboard, and there was
a sickish feeling in the pit of my stomach. I could hardly
wait to get aboard Sea Diver and head for my bunk.

It was nearly midnight before Captain Weems re-

Search for the Santa Maria 189

turned with the welcome news that the colonel was send-
ing us a permit at four thirty the next morning, so that we
could set out early for the reefs. He told us how, after
leaving us at dinner, he and M. Beck had again visited
both the prefect and the colonel, but to no avail. He had
then phoned the ambassador in Port-au-Prince and learned
that the Haitian authorities had promised to send a tele-
gram to Army headquarters in Cap Haitien, granting us
permission. He and M. Beck had then returned to the
colonel’s office, to find that the telegram had been received
and filed unbeknown to the colonel.

The few hours of the night that were left passed very
quickly in spite of my discomfort. Before it seemed pos-
sible, we were awakened by a car horn and shouts from
the shore. Ed hurried on deck, telling me to stay in bed
until we had reached the reefs.

When I finally came on deck after a painful struggle to
get into my clothes, Sea Diver was just being anchored
behind the middle reef in a position that would put her as
close as possible to the ballast, where we expected to be
working. By nine o'clock we had finished breakfast and
were gathered on deck, ready to embark on Reef Diver and
start our search. We looked toward the reefs, expecting to
pick out the location of the ballast without any difficulty.

Captain Weems and I pointed to a spot on the reef just
to our starboard and said, “That’s the place.” After careful
scrutiny, Kemp selected the far end of the reef to our port.
Ed sided with him, knowing Kemp's faculty for recogniz-
ing almost any spot on the ocean bottom he had seen be-
fore. It was decided to search the latter.

The wind was blowing hard by this time, and, when
we approached the reefs, we found the seas were already
breaking over them. For more than an hour we searched
without seeing a thing. Perhaps we were searching the

190 Sea Diver

wrong reef after all. Why not try the other one? We care-
fully combed the waters in front of it.

All this time the sea was becoming rougher. The tide
was coming in, and great rollers were breaking on the
coral, making it more and more impossible to approach
very near. Kemp insisted that the ballast was close in on
the other reef, but so close that he dared not guide the |
boat near it for fear of being caught in the breakers. We
headed in that direction, and Ed and Captain Weems took
a turn at watching the bottom.

Suddenly there were excited shouts from inside the
cabin. Captain Weems and Ed had spotted something.
Kemp maneuvered the boat back over the spot as I hurried
into the cabin to see what they were looking at.

“Two cannon,” they exulted. We cruised back and
forth while they examined them from above.

“They're not old enough to be from the Santa Maria,”
Ed said. “Must be another wreck.”

That was disappointing, for if we were near the ballast
which we had spotted on Sunday, then it and these cannon
could have come from the same wreck. In that case it was
probably not the Santa Maria's ballast we had seen previ-
ously. We would never know until we located the pile of
rocks. By this time it had become too rough to anchor and
dive on the cannon, so Kemp marked the location with a
yellow buoy and we headed back to Sea Diver.

Bill and Clayton were waiting at the rail to greet us,
but neither appeared very happy. The ship performed a
slow rock and roll the rest of the day, the wind building up
to thirty knots from the east. Over Cap Haitien the skies
became black and stormy. We reluctantly concluded that
once more we would have to spend the night behind the
reefs. The boys retired to their cabins, not the least inter-
ested in preparation for dinner.

Search for the Santa Maria 191

It was apparent that if we were to have sufficiently
calm water to work around the reefs, we would have to
make an earlier start in the morning. High winds were evi-
dently customary in this part of the world during the spring
months.

We were up at five the next morning, and were on the
reefs at six thirty, planning to dive on the spot where the
cannon had been buoyed. A light, early-morning breeze
from shore had replaced the steady onslaught of the pre-
vailing easterly, and Sea Diver rode quietly at anchor. In-
spired by the temporary calm and the promise of some
underwater activity, Bill and Clayton were in the best of
spirits.

Captain Weems, certain that he could find the missing
ballast, set out with Vital and Clayton in Wee Diver. They
planned to search both reefs while the water was calm
enough to get in close to them. The rest of the party
boarded Reef Diver and headed for the buoy which marked
the cannon. Although the sun was still low, we found that
there was sufficient light to be able to see the bottom
clearly.

As soon as we were anchored over the cannon, Ed and
Bill went overboard with the air hoses. I floated on the
surface, watching the divers as they inspected the cannon,
which lay side by side below. I could see no other signs
of wreckage, and when Ed came to the surface, he con-
firmed this.

“They are old French sakers,” he said. “There’s noth-
ing else around. Perhaps they were thrown overboard to
lighten some ship so that it could be gotten off the reef.”

His remark reminded me of that time when this same
harbor had been a regular port of call for the commerce of
the world. Here once had lain at anchor Napoleon's mighty
fleet of conquest. There must have been many times when

anchors had dragged or ships had been forced upon the

192 Sea Diver

reefs in adverse winds and tides. Some of them must have
ended disastrously on the bottom of this now-deserted
harbor.

We were just climbing back aboard when we saw a
launch approaching Sea Diver from the direction of town.
It was the Life magazine team we had been expecting for
several days. We pulled up our anchor and went to greet
them—Peter Stackpole, world-renowned photographer,
particularly keen on underwater picture-taking; and Kay
Hampton, reporter.

There was an envious look on the faces of our two
sons as they watched the launch cast off to depart for town,
for by now the early-morning calm had retired in favor
of the usual strong wind and rolling seas, and they were
both seasick again.

Despite the roughness of the water, Peter and Kay
pleaded to be taken out to the reefs to see the cannon. So
Ed, pleased to demonstrate our little Reef Diver, set out to
introduce them to our place of operations. They were back
in no time, Kay making a brave attempt to overcome the
queasiness she had felt while looking at the bottom as Reef
Diver pitched and tossed. The wind by now had risen to
forty knots, and any further exploration that day was out of
the question.

- There was a general exodus to quarters. Only the
hardy ones remained on deck to watch as Peter set up his
cameras and enclosed them in the six gleaming black-and-
crystal lucite cases which he had made for their use under-
water.

We were again up at five the next morning, and by
sunup were on the reefs with both boats. As on the previous
morning, there was a slight land breeze and the water was
fairly calm. Ed dove on two likely spots which he had
buoyed previously, only to find that what had appeared to
be stone ballast was boulder-shaped coral.

Search for the Santa Maria 193

We combed the area thoroughly that morning, search-
ing close to the temporarily docile reefs, but we were
unable to find the pile of ballast which we thought we had
seen on Easter Sunday. We could only conclude that we
had been deceived by a scattering of coral rocks on one of
the sites which Ed had later examined and rejected.

We returned to Cap Haitien that afternoon, as Bill
and Clayton had to be in Port-au-Prince the following
day to board the airliner for home. Never were sailors hap-
pier to get back to port! By then the entire Link family had
succumbed to “Haitian tummy.” Clayton was running a
temperature. Bill was a mass of sunburn, and I was sure I
had at least one broken rib. To everyone's relief, Ed de-
cided to keep Sea Diver in port the next day. The whole
crew was weary from the constant beating we had taken,
and there were many chores on board that needed doing.
Sea Diver would not set out again until Sunday.

194 Sea Diver

When Sea Diver returned to her labors two
days later, her crew very much refreshed, I did not accom-
pany them. I had visited a doctor in Port-au-Prince after
putting the boys on their plane. He had advised that I
should stay quietly ashore for a few days. I did not have
any broken ribs, as I had feared, but the tendons were
badly strained, and I was tightly bandaged. So I spent the
time at the Becks’ hotel, very much irritated at my en-
forced idleness.

Sea Diver’s crew, meanwhile, had abandoned their
search of the three reefs which had originally occupied us
and moved on to a bank of reefs just west of them. There
now seemed only one thing to do, to proceed from reef
to reef, wherever they figured the Santa Maria might have
sailed, and carefully explore each one. It promised to be
a long and grueling task.

There was one chance of shortening the search. Mori-
son had chosen the reefs we had examined after first con-
vincing himself that Navidad had been located on the

Search for the Santa Maria 195

shore in the approximate vicinity of Limonade Bord de
Mer. He had then applied the Journal's account of the
salvaging of the Santa Maria and figured that the flagship
must have struck upon one of these reefs.

But there was no proof of where Navidad had actu-
ally stood. Moreau de St.-Méry, the French historian who
lived in Hispaniola for a time at the end of the eighteenth
century, claimed that the fort was erected inland on the
banks of the Fosse River, which in Columbus's time prob-
ably emptied into the sea near Limonade Bord de Mer. Yet
he also recorded the discovery of one of the Santa Maria's
anchors in the muddy bottom of the Grande Riviere, a mile
from its mouth and some two miles west of that fishing
village.

Was Navidad on the shore, or was it located on the
bank of one of these two rivers? If Navidad was in the
vicinity of the Grande Riviere, it would be logical to look
for the remains of the Santa Maria to the west of where
we had been searching, on a line east of Punta Santa to
the mouth of the river. Several times, when Sea Diver had
remained at anchor overnight behind the reefs, I had
watched the native fishing boats as they sailed forth at
dawn from the anchorage in front of Limonade Bord de
Mer, some three miles from us. I felt that a visit to this
area might provide the answer to some of the questions
that were puzzling us.

Meanwhile I reviewed what had happened to Navi-
dad and its thirty-nine settlers between the time Columbus
left them to sail back to Spain and his return the following
fall with men and supplies to strengthen the colony.

He found Navidad burned and not one of the settlers
still alive. Columbus must have counted much upon the
existence of that first colony. He had no doubt looked
forward to the accumulation of a vast treasure of gold in
his absence, as well as shelter and fresh food, for his sea-

196 Sea Diver

weary men. For on this second voyage, he had arrived with
seventeen vessels carrying more than twelve hundred sea-
men, colonists and soldiers, his mission to establish a perma-
nent colony close to the source of gold, which was to aug-
ment Spain’s wealth and power.

This fleet, having just arrived, was standing on and off
outside the reefs a league from shore on the evening of
November twenty-eighth, “where the Christians had been
left. The Admiral ordered two lombards to be fired in or-
der to see if the Christians who had been left with Gau-
canagari would answer, since lombards had been left with
them.” There was no reply.

Columbus, already alarmed at the discovery of the
decomposed bodies of two bearded white men on the
shore close to his last anchorage, now felt sure that his
colony had met catastrophe. A short time later his ship
was approached by Indian messengers in a canoe. They
informed him that their chief, Guacanagari, was now liv-
ing in a village some distance away, as there had been a
battle with two other Indian kings and the village had
been burned. They admitted that some of the Spaniards
whom Columbus had left “had died of grief and others
as a result of quarrels that had arisen between them.”
But they also indicated that still others were alive and well.

. “Next day they [the fleet] expected Guacanagari in
the morning, but he never came, and after a while some
landed by order of the Admiral and went to the place
where Guacanagari usually was. They found it burned,
and a hut, strengthened with a palisade, where the Chris-
tians had lived and kept their property, was likewise burned
and destroyed.”

After further investigation, Columbus pieced together
what had happened. Scarcely had he sailed for Spain with
the Nina than the Castilians who were left behind had
aroused the anger of the friendly Indians of the village

Search for the Santa Maria 197

by their lust for gold and their pursuit of the women of
the tribe. A band of the Spaniards who were roaming the
countryside and terrorizing the inhabitants were at last set
upon and killed by order of the Indian chiefs Caonaboa
and Mariema. The warriors had then attacked the Indian
village to ferret out the rest of the Spaniards and had
slaughtered them.

Guacanagari, evidently feeling obligated to his friend
Columbus in spite of the despicable way the Castilians
had behaved, had tried to defend them, thus bringing
disaster upon his own people. Now Guacanagari had re-
tired to the main Indian village to the east, supposedly to
recuperate from a leg wound he had received in the fight-
ing.

As there was no longer any reason to settle at the site
of Navidad, Columbus sent exploring parties in both di-
rections in a vain search for a likely site for the new
settlement he proposed to establish. He finally determined
to return along the coast to the east and build a town nearer
the area where gold had been found.

So, early in December, almost a year after the wreck
of the Santa Maria, the fleet departed, leaving as evidence
of white occupancy only a broken ship on a coral reef,
the burned ruins of Spain’s first settlement, and a scatter-
ing of European belongings which had found their way
into the huts of the Indians who had salvaged them. It
would be many years before the white man would return
to make over this part of Hispaniola to his design.

I spent the next two days quietly at the Beck hostelry
while each morning Sea Diver and her crew set out to
continue their exploration of the reefs. They came upon no
signs of a ship as old as the Santa Maria, but they returned
at the end of the second day to report the discovery of a
most intriguing wreck. The watchers in Reef Diver's hull

198 Sea Diver

had first spotted a large anchor pointing shoreward. When
Ed and Captain Weems went skin diving upon the area,
they came upon the remains of a large ship, including two
more anchors, a coral-crusted, boxlike object and much
standing rigging, jutting out of coral formations which
undoubtedly concealed many other things.

But what had excited their curiosity most was a square —
pile of blackened, sediment-encrusted bars, the same size
and shape as the silver bars which had come from the Cay
Gorda wreck. Skin diving on them had failed to reveal
their composition, and it was too late in the day to bring
Sea Diver close enough to use the salvage equipment.

So they had set out early the next morning in great
excitement to investigate their find, leaving me thoroughly
disgusted at having to remain behind. But even though I
was not yet in condition to join the searchers on Sea Diver,
I thought that perhaps I could accomplish something
ashore.

I was sitting at the breakfast table, mulling over the
possibility of tracing the Santa Maria's wreck site by some-
how establishing the location of Navidad, when M. Beck
happened along. I asked him how I could get to Limonade
Bord de Mer, the site of Navidad, according to Dr. Mori-
son. He had never been there and said he was not even
sure it could be reached by road, but he promised to make
inquiries for me.

I was elated when he returned to tell me that it was
possible to drive within a short distance of the village and
then to follow a footpath the remainder of the way. He
offered to take me there in his station wagon, along with
his wife and son. This was my opportunity. I stifled some
thoughts as to whether the trip would be too strenuous
for me, and what Ed would have to say about my going,
and told him I would be delighted. So after lunch we
started out.

Search for the Santa Maria 199

Taking a road from town which led through Quartier
Marin, a tiny farming village, we crossed a bridge over a
wide river bed and turned north along a narrow dirt road
leading along the river. It was known locally as the Parois,
the Becks told me in their halting English, but it was really
the Grande Riviere. What luck that I would have an op-
portunity to inspect this stream, in which the Columbus
anchor had been found, as well as the lay of the land behind
Limonade Bord de Mer.

Although there was not much water flowing over the
rocky bottom at that time of year, I could see from the
height of the banks on either side that the wide bed was
used to carrying quantities of mountain water. It was lined _
on either side by great shade trees, some as much as five
feet in diameter, the silvery-gray, thorny trunks of the
sablier and the rich shining green of the mango mingling
with the coarse-patterned leaves of the breadfruit. Clumps
of yellow-green bamboo and stubby palms grew at their
feet.

Wherever the river made a turn, creating dry, rocky
spaces on the inside of each curve, small groups of women
from the countryside were on their knees at the water's
edge, doing their laundry. None of them wore clothes
above the waist. They splashed and chatted happily as they
scrubbed, festooning the shrubbery along the shore with
the freshly washed clothes.

The road became rougher and narrower, and M. Beck
was forced to shift into low in order to negotiate many of
the rutty places. Branches slapped against the car as we
passed. Soon we left the river and drove through woods
and fields until we came to a clearing. Here were a few
small houses, the ruins of a very old French Colonial brick-
and-stone wall, and at a distance from the road in the di-
rection of the river, the moldering walls of an old sugar
mill.

200 Sea Diver

This was Habitation Bellevue, formerly the location
of one of the many wealthy plantations which had dotted
this fertile plain. It was near here, in the bed of the river,
that the Columbus-type anchor now in Port-au-Prince had
been found nearly two hundred years before.

M. Beck stopped before one of the thatched cottages
to make inquiries of an old man who volunteered to show
us the rest of the way to Limonade Bord de Mer. He
crowded into the front seat with the two Beck men, and
we left the clearing to enter a thicket of lacy logwood
trees, their feet buried in flat, claylike soil.

Emerging from these woods, we were confronted by
a wide channel of water cutting directly across the road.
Here we had to leave the car and set out on foot, crossing
the shallow water by means of some logs which lay at
one side of the road. It was evident from the ebbing flow
of the water that this was an arm of the sea reaching back
into the interior.

We followed the path across a wide stretch of saline
flats and then into a tangle of mesquite. The ground be-
came softer and swampier, and the path meandered into
a large patch of mangrove, its edges splashed with colorful
sea grape. Here strong sea breezes sweeping across the low
bushes cooled our heated bodies.

Ok group of ragged Haitians passed us, carrying water
on their heads in a variety of containers, their feet splash-
ing through the salty mud of the path. We had taken to
the more solid ground alongside, but soon found that if
we would continue to the beach, we would have to wade
through the muck also. Fortunately, an obliging native
with a machete came along just then and solved our prob-
lem by cutting enough mangrove branches to make a dry
path across the ooze.

At last we came out on the narrow beach. The coarse
brown sand was littered with debris from the sea. A few

Search for the Santa Maria 201

crude fishing boats, obviously carpentered by hand from
a variety of woods, and calked with black tar, were drawn
up on the beach. Three others strained at their moorings
just offshore in the choppy waves kicked up by the after-
noon’s prevailing east wind.

We walked the remaining quarter mile to Limonade
Bord de Mer through loose, deep sand, our heads bent into
the wind as we struggled along. My side pained me and
I was breathing hard. I wondered why I had ever set out
on such a trip, when the doctor had warned me against
going out on Sea Diver because it would be too exhaust-
ing.

The village proved to be a scattering of poor, thatched
huts around the nucleus of the old French Colonial church,
whose steeple had been the focal point of many of the bear-
ings we had taken from Sea Diver while out on the reefs.
It was a desolate spot—no grass, no trees, only a low,
shrubby growth in the vicinity of the houses, and no fer-
tile land for garden patches. We found that there was only
brackish water in the wells behind the church, and that
fresh water had to be carried from the Grande Riviére,
more than a mile away. All day long the village was ex-
posed to the hot, tropical sun as well as to the full fury
of frequent stormy winds and seas.

Unless this stretch of beach had differed vastly in
Columbus’s time, I could not believe he would have picked
such a location for Navidad. Yet Morison was convinced
that Navidad had stood along this seacoast, within a half
mile of the little church. On the other hand, St.-Meéry, who
knew the area well in the decade before the black revolu-
tion, believed that Navidad was located more than a league
up the Fosse River.

It seemed improbable to me that the Indians would
have chosen this barren shore for a permanent village.
Wasn't it more likely that they would have selected higher

202 Sea Diver

(e- eg ee

Only surviving chart made by Columbus upon his return to Navidad in 1493.
It is impossible to determine the actual location of Navidad from this crude
drawing.

Early charts of first settlement in New World.

Las Casas’s chart of section of Hispaniola showing location of Navidad and
Isabela, the settlement which replaced it. The two indentations in the coastline
in the vicinity of Navidad make it appear that Navidad was located near the
Grande Riviere, the other river being Haut du Cap near the present city of
Cap Haitien.

ground, with fertile land for their crops, a nearby supply
of fresh water, and a quiet landing place for their canoes?
I remembered that Las Casas, the historian who had visited
the site of Navidad during Columbus’s lifetime, had de-
scribed it as being “overgrown with so many and such
great trees.” Perhaps like those I had seen along the banks
of the Grande Riviére before we had reached the barren
shore lands.

Also, I recalled, the morning after the Santa Maria
was wrecked, Columbus had found it necessary to send a
messenger to inform Guacanagari, “who had his town in-
land about a league and a half from the said bank.” I had
read other passages which indicated that Navidad was in-
land, doubtless up a river. But which river? The Fosse to-
day was a dried-up river bed with no outlet to the sea,
while the Grande Riviere was a wide, deep river bed, carry-
ing a quantity of water even at this dry season.

According to all accounts, the mouth of the Grande
Riviere had been built out into the sea with silt both be-
fore and since the time of St.-Méry. A map of the area in
St.-Méry’s time had shown a deep indentation at the mouth,
while today the shore line extended some distance into
the harbor. So the anchor which was found at Habitation
Bellevue, a long way from the sea, might in Columbus's
time have lain much closer to the outlet.

As I returned with the Becks that afternoon to Cap
Haitien, I examined the Grande Riviére with new interest.
It seemed very probable that somewhere along its shores
the Indian village and Navidad had once existed. I wished
that it were possible to explore its lower reaches where it
entered the sea, for the extent of this delta land might be
a clue as to where the Santa Maria had found its last resting
place. Perhaps Ed and I could visit it later with Reef Diver,
from the direction of the sea.

204 Sea Diver

I learned at dinner that the “silver” bars in the tempt-
ing pile had turned out to be only iron ballast. Ed said that
the wreck was that of an early paddle-wheel steamer with
sails. The square, boxlike object had turned out to be the
boiler. Because of the large amount of brass and copper to
be seen, he figured the ship must have been British, these
finer metals being a well-known characteristic of English
shipbuilding.

Captain Weems was much intrigued by a copper ob-
ject which he had tentatively identified as a strange kind
of depth finder. Using a small charge of dynamite to free
it, he had emerged with what appeared to be a lead sound-
ing weight and a cluster of copper rods, each two feet
long, and hooked, so that they folded back and forth upon
each other. His interest was aroused more than ever when
he found that there were sixty-six of these rods, measuring
an exact twenty-two fathoms. He could scarcely wait to get
it back to Annapolis to seek help in identifying the depth
finder.

There was no doubt from their eager conversation

that Sea Diver’s crew had had a most satisfactory after-
noon, although their morning search of the reefs had still
failed to produce any signs of the Santa Maria.
_ Peter Stackpole urged that they return to the wreck
the next day, for he wanted to get some underwater-camera
shots of the divers in action. How about raising one of
the anchors? he suggested. M. Beck thought this would be
a fine idea, for the prefect had already expressed a desire
for an old anchor to decorate the park by the sea wall.

I listened to their talk enviously, for although we had
been in Haiti for two weeks at this point, I had not yet
been underwater. I wondered if my bandaged side would
allow me to make a dive the next day; then desperately de-
termined to make the attempt.

Search for the Santa Maria 205

So we rose at four thirty the next morning and drove
through the silent pre-dawn streets to the dockside. Sea
Diver was soon under way. When we arrived in the vicinity
of the wreck, she was eased into position, close enough to
one of the old anchors so that her lifting equipment could
be used in raising it.

As soon as there was light enough to see clearly be-
neath the surface, we went overboard—Captain Weems,
Ed, and I with the air hoses, and Peter and Kay with tanks
strapped to their backs. It was good to be on the bottom
again. I enjoyed myself immensely, swimming about the
wreckage and scanning the coral formations in hopes of
discovering some object which the others might have over-
looked the previous day. As long as I did not use my right
arm I found that my ribs did not hurt too badly, but I dared
not exert myself.

In the meantime Ed and Captain Weems had suc-
ceeded in prying loose an anchor from the coral and sand.
While Peter maneuvered about the men with his camera,
they secured a heavy chain about its shank and then sig-
naled to Vital and Kemp on deck to start the winch. By the
time the anchor had been dragged across the bottom to
a spot just below the lifting gear, the water had become
so murky it was hard to see anything.

I swam clumsily toward Sea Diver's bow to look for
the large anchor which had been the first sign of the wreck,
thinking the water would be clearer in that direction.
It was then I discovered that my air hose, floating free
near the surface, had become entangled with a mess of
other lines and hoses stemming from the same section of
Sea Diver’s deck. I swam an intricate pattern to extricate
myself from them, and then headed again toward the bow,
carefully scanning the coral bottom for signs of wreckage.

I was about thirty feet beyond the boat when I be-

206 Sea Diver

came sharply aware that there was no more air coming
into my mask. I took quick stock of the situation. Should I
head back to the ladder some sixty feet away? Should I
swim to the surface, trusting that I could keep myself afloat
in spite of the lead belt around my waist, until someone
discovered my predicament? Or should I struggle with the
fastening of the belt in the hope of getting it off before
attempting to surface? I knew that the latter was the proper
procedure, but I doubted if I could pull the buckle free
with the handicap of my bandaged side.

But as these thoughts flashed through my mind, I
was already making a quick leap in the direction of the
ladder. The water there was so murky I could see only
vague shadows. Just as I thought I could not go without
air a second longer, I realized that I was once more breath-
ing.

I gratefully inhaled a gulp of air as I seized the bot-
tom rung of the ladder and pulled myself up, to find Ed
freeing my hose from one of the metal legs, where it had
become entangled. It had evidently floated to the surface
when I was maneuvering to get clear of the anchor tackle,
and as I swam toward the bow, had caught on the ladder
and kinked. Ed had often assured me that he kept an eye
on me when I was underwater. Now I knew that he
meant it.

A short time later we had the nine-foot anchor lashed
to Sea Diver's rail. We were removing our diving gear
when a launch drew up alongside with the prefect, the
colonel and the Becks aboard. As Ed hurried down the deck
in his bare feet to greet them, he kicked a corner of the
freezer box. Feeling a quick stab of pain, he examined his
right foot to find the fourth toe bent straight back on itself.
He wrenched it back into place, hoping it was only out of
joint, and continued aft to help our guests aboard.

Search for the Santa Maria 207

We headed back to Cap Haitien that noon and de-
posited the anchor on the municipal dock, where it was put
in charge of the Port Captain until a permanent place could
be arranged for it. Then M. Beck drove Ed off to a doctor.
They returned an hour later with the disturbing news that
the toe was broken. It would take at least a month to heal,
even if he were very careful of it.

208 Sea Diver

“I saw that Spanish cross in my dreams
again last night,” I said, as we ate our breakfast aboard Sea
Diver the next morning, preparatory to starting the day’s
search. “It looked exactly like the one I saw in the clouds
over the mountains the day we arrived.”

Ed stared at me absent-mindedly. “Did you?” he said.

I could tell his mind was not on this evidence of the
supernatural’s interest in our expedition. He was wonder-
ing why the Nordberg diesel was spitting oil and had sud-
denly become so cussed to start, for he immediately said:
“Vital, when you get the time, take the head off that diesel.
Id like to see what’s wrong with it.”

But Kay, who was dawdling with her cereal, for her
appetite was never very good at this early hour, turned
to me in excitement. “Marion, isn't that fascinating? It’s
the second time you've seen that cross. Do you suppose it
really has some significance?” We both felt a little thrill
of superstitious awe at the thought.

The men proceeded to talk over plans for the day. At

Search for the Santa Maria 209

any moment we were expecting Charlie Martin, pilot of
the harbor launch, who had promised to take us to an
anchor which, he said, was known throughout the port as
the Santa Maria's anchor.

After searching almost every likely spot for nearly
two weeks, we had received this information with skep-
ticism; particularly as it was evidently in a section of the
harbor where it seemed dubious Columbus had ever taken
the Santa Maria. In spite of our doubt, however, we could
not afford to pass up the possibility that this local legend
might have some truth in it.

Charlie arrived just as we finished breakfast. He sug-
gested that we take Sea Diver as far as possible, transfer-
ring to the small boats when we reached shallow water. So
we set out, towing Reef Diver, and heading a little south
of east. We anchored about two miles from town in four
fathoms of water. From here Ed piloted Reef Diver while
Kemp manned the outboard. The rest of us distributed
ourselves between the two boats.

We had gone only a short distance when the bottom
climbed steeply to a flat, spreading shoal of cobblestones
and grass. Near its edge, jutting from the water, was a
reddish-brown curved object which at first glance might
have been a fisherman’s marker or the dead branch of a
tree. Instead, to our amazement, Charlie pointed it out as
the arm of an old anchor, which lay well buried in the
bottom.

Captain Weems, who was in the Wee Diver with
Kemp and me, climbed overboard to investigate, and I
soon followed. It was low tide, and we were in water just
above our knees. We found that the protruding arm of the
anchor had lost its fluke, and the other arm was completely
buried. The shank extended for nine feet under the sur-
face of the water, but the ring was gone.

Captain Weems, who had started poking about with

210 Sea Diver

a glass-bottomed bucket, soon discovered an anchor ring
a short distance away. He shouted that he had found the
missing part, but then found that it was the top of a sec-
ond anchor, completely embedded in the shoal. More scout-
ing revealed a third anchor within the same area. They
were all of similar design and period, which Ed informed
us was eighteenth-century French. None of them, by a
long shot, could qualify as having come from the Santa
Maria, but they must have lain there nearly two hundred
years, since Haiti was a French possession.

Our guide then directed us toward the nearby man-
grove shore. There, close to the narrow, sandy beach, which
was uncovered only at low tide, were the arms of three
more anchors jutting from the water, the remainder of them
entirely concealed in the sand. We gazed curiously at
them.

Charlie told us that in the past this narrow strip of
beach had been a loading place for ships coming in for
the products of the countryside. This, then, explained the
presence of the quantities of small, round boulders in the
water. They were ballast which had been discharged over-
board when the ships had taken on cargo. Probably the
three anchors on the first shoal had served as moorings for
the same purpose.
| Regretfully Ed told Charlie that while these anchors
were very interesting, none of them was at all the kind we
were seeking. Did he know of any other very old anchors?

Charlie reminded him that he had already told us of
one near the black-can buoy, coming into the harbor from
Point Picolet. He did not know whether it was very old.
He could only say it was a “different-looking” anchor.

Ed said without enthusiasm. “Well, we might as well
take a look at it.”

We returned to Sea Diver and got her under way,
heading north toward the mouth of the harbor. We found

Search for the Santa Maria 211

from the chart that we were on our way to Le Grand Mou-
ton reef, that shoal in the very center of the harbor en-
trance which had challenged our attention when we first
entered Cap Haitien harbor. Coming up behind it, we
anchored Sea Diver in deep water and pulled Reef Diver
alongside. This time the search boat carried Kay, Peter,
Captain Weems, Ed, Kemp, Charlie and myself—a full
crew, to say the least.

Charlie, standing on the bow, guided us toward the
reef, now and then signaling Kemp to zig or zag as he
hunted the location of the “different-looking” anchor
through the clear water. At last he indicated that we had
reached the spot.

Kay and Captain Weems, who were watching the bot-
tom from inside the cabin, exclaimed at the anchor, which
could be glimpsed below. It was impossible to see it clearly,
for the glass had become very scummy from the water of
the inner harbor, so Captain Weems volunteered to dive
on it to see if it were worth further investigation. He re-
ported other wreckage scattered about as he swam toward
the bow. It all looked very modern, he said.

After diving several times on the anchor, which lay
just ahead of our bow, he finally reported that it was a
very odd shape, but that he did not think it was very old,
as it had only a thin covering of coral. He wished some-
one else would examine it.

As Ed did not want to wet the bandage on his broken
toe unless necessary, I offered to take a look at the anchor
from the surface. I studied it a few moments. Like Captain
Weems, I was confused, for I could not make out the shape
clearly. Ed then decided to examine it himself. While I
waited for him to get into his Desco equipment, I swam
around, looking over the other wreckage scattered about.
It was evident that the ship had broken up not too many
years ago. We had apparently drawn another dud.

Then, about a hundred feet from Reef Diver, I saw

212 Sea Diver

another anchor! It was much smaller than the one Charlie
had brought us to see. It was heavily encrusted with coral,
its simple lines unbroken by flukes. The ring and a part of
the shank were missing. This was much more the type for
which we had been searching.

I called to Ed, “There’s another anchor over here.
Better have a look at it, too, when you get into the water.”

I really didn’t give it much thought. I was pretty well
surfeited with anchors after the number we had seen that
morning. Besides, we were quite a ways from the area
where the Santa Maria was supposed to have gone down.

Finally arrayed in his underwater gear, Ed climbed
clumsily over the side of Reef Diver. He headed in my
direction, and I led him to the spot where the ringless
anchor lay. I watched from the surface as he dove to make
his inspection. The anchor was in about twelve feet of
water. He looked it over carefully, making crude estimates
of its length and breadth with his outstretched arms. Then,
instead of swimming over to the larger anchor which had
puzzled Captain Weems and me, he swam toward the
boarding ladder on Reef Diver.

I followed him on the surface, arriving just in time to
hear him say, “I think perhaps we've got it.”

There was an excited interchange of data. It was the
right shape and size; it was heavily encrusted with coral,
its ring and flukes were missing.

Immediately there was a general scramble overboard
as all those in swimming gear made a beeline for the spot
where my discovery lay. While the swimmers hovered over
it and dove upon it, Ed investigated the first anchor which
had excited our curiosity. He dismissed it with scarcely a
glance. Back on Reef Diver he told us that it was a modern
patent anchor with a stock which folded back on the shank
when not in use. Coral had grown over it in grotesque
hunks to give it its strange appearance.

Kemp dropped a yellow buoy on the spot, and we

Search for the Santa Maria 213

hurried back to Sea Diver for additional equipment. Vital
joined the others when they returned to raise our find
while Kay and I remained on the larger boat. We were
most excited. Strange to have found it in such a location,
but it surely had the look of the anchor we were seeking.
We waited eagerly for Reef Diver to return.

At last we heard the boat’s high-pitched hum. We
hurried to the rail. We could sense excitement in the men’s
voices and their smiles as they approached Sea Diver. The
anchor was lashed to the iron superstructure of the little
cruiser, the broken end dragging in the water.

“This looks like the real McCoy,” Ed called.

They were indeed pleased with their find, for this
anchor might very well have come from the Santa Maria.
It was photographed like a prima donna; first as it hung
from the stern of Reef Diver and, later, reclining upon a
tarpaulin on the aft deck of Sea Diver.

Careful measuring showed it to be seventy-eight inches
long without the missing ring end. The arms were irregu-
lar in length, probably because of the missing flukes. The
distance from the end of one arm to the other was fifty-
five inches. Ed made detailed and accurate measurements
of each section as Captain Weems noted them on paper.

Then Ed took a hammer and chisel and carefully set to
work, where the shank and arms joined, to remove enough
of the coral covering to reach the original iron. It was quite
a job, for the encrustation was an inch and a quarter thick,
and he did not want to damage the anchor. As he had
expected, there was evidence of crude welding of the
two parts, and a hand-wrought look to the iron. Only very
early anchors were made in this fashion; later they were
cast, he said.

Further testing at the end of one of the arms showed
a narrow channel in the metal where the fluke had orig-
inally been forged to the arm. A third test spot at the

214 Sea Diver

severed end of the shank showed it to be roughly broken,
the soft condition of the corroded metal in its core testify-
ing to an invasion of salt water sometime in the past, when
the fracture had occurred.

Ed had seen enough to feel very certain that we had
a Columbus-period anchor. But would we ever know
whether it had indeed come from the Santa Maria?

Strangely, he had discovered, when he went to loosen
it from the bottom, so that it could be raised, that it was
already lying free. Most assuredly, an anchor nearly five
hundred years old and as thickly covered with coral as this
one would have been cemented so securely to the spot
where it lay that nothing less than a charge of dynamite
could remove it. Unless it had been buried in sand. How,
then, did it get to the location where we had found it, on
a hard-coral bottom?

Then I recalled the numerous woven-cane fish traps
of the natives, which we had seen on almost every reef,
weighted to the bottom with large rocks or whatever heavy
objects could be secured for the purpose. I remembered
watching that first day on the reefs as a sturdy fisherman
dove over the side of his crude sailing craft to inspect a
fish trap near Sea Diver's anchorage. He had come up with
two conch shells from a fathometer-measured depth of
forty-five feet. Was it not possible that sometime in the
past another fisherman had snagged and transported this
broken anchor to the spot where we had found it?

This led to further speculation. Perhaps the anchor
had lain in sand with only its ring and upper part cemented
in the coral. Then, after hundreds of years of corrosive
action, a strong pull from the surface on its lower part
had caused the shank to break under the strain. Ed had al-
ready remarked that the coral which covered the anchor
was a sand-formed encrustation.

Granting that such a thing might have occurred, and

Search for the Santa Maria 215

that this was an anchor from the Santa Maria, we seemed
to be just as far from our objective. We still did not know
where the Santa Maria had gone down. We could only guess
that in the coral of one of the reefs in the harbor might lie
the ring and upper end of the anchor. If we could find that
spot, we might also find other indications of the Santa
Maria’s last resting place.

We had eliminated the possibility that the Santa Maria
might actually have sunk on Le Grand Mouton because
of Columbus’s statement that he was a league distant from
Punta Santa an hour before he struck the reef.

Unfortunately, unless we could somehow find the re-
mains of the Santa Maria, we could never say positively,
“Here is an anchor from Columbus’s flagship, first to visit
the New World and first to go to its grave upon the reefs
of Hispaniola.” We could only say, “Here is an anchor that
may have come from the Santa Maria. It is of that era, of
the proper size, design and workmanship.”

In any case we had found one of the oldest anchors
ever discovered in the New World. Only the one in the
museum at Port-au-Prince could lay claim to being as old.
We were more curious than ever to see that historic anchor
and to compare it with our find.

216 Sea Diver

The morning following the finding of the
ancient anchor, we got Sea Diver under way and began to
search the western end of the ten-mile barrier reef at the
outer edge of the harbor, which we had avoided until now.
With only two days left before Captain Weems and the
Life team would be leaving, we had decided to concentrate
on any likely areas we had so far missed.

We had eyed the long coral bank each time we had
passed it on our way to the inner reefs, questioning the
possibility that the Santa Maria might have gone on it in
the darkness of that Christmas Eve. But always the large
ocean waves which burst mightily upon it made it look
very hazardous to approach in any of our boats.

Fortunately we had chosen a quiet morning. We an-
chored well inside the barrier, with enough room for Sea
Diver to swing in any direction. Although the sea was
calmer than we had yet seen it, there were already breakers
upon the reef. Ed had mapped out a plan of search cover-
ing about two miles of its western extremity, for he thought

Search for the Santa Maria 217

that if the Santa Maria had grounded here, it could only
have been at this end. Captain Weems and Vital were to
follow the inside of the reef in Wee Diver, while the rest
of us, in Reef Diver, would investigate the outer edge, as
close to the reef as the rolling sea would allow.

We found the water very rough, and as the wind came
up and slack tide changed to a rising one, our project be-
came increasingly hazardous. The waves reached the outer
edge of the reef in large swells and charged across it in
foaming white crests. Ed steered as close as he dared, but
was forced to keep Reef Diver at a distance of nearly forty
feet. Kemp was perched on the bow, where he could
watch the bottom with his “X-ray” eyes, and the rest of
us took turns at the viewing glass in the cabin.

Now and then we caught glimpses of Wee Diver on
the inner side of the reef, working past us in the opposite
direction. She looked very small and helpless as she ap-
peared and disappeared behind the breaking seas. Still,
she was on the safe side of the breakers, where a stalled
outboard would only result in her occupants’ being carried
away from the reef in the direction of shore. I tried not to
imagine what would happen to us if the engine of Reef
Diver should suddenly stop. It demanded all the power
that Ed could muster to keep us at a safe distance, with
wind, waves and tide all conspiring to carry us on the reef.

I spent an unproductive half hour looking through the
glass in the cabin. When I returned to the cockpit, we had
just passed Wee Diver on the other side of the barrier reef,
only a few hundred yards from us. I could see only Vital
at the outboard. Captain Weems undoubtedly was
sprawled in the bottom of the boat, his eyes glued to the
passing scene below; for he, like myself, was so intrigued
with this means of exploring the ocean floor that the rest
of the world was blotted out whenever he had a chance to
search.

218 Sea Diver

Just then Vital must have seen a break in the foaming
barrier and recklessly decided to join us on the outside,
for unexpectedly I saw him turn the little boat and head
into the breakers. It did not seem possible that he could
make it.

Wee Diver was almost through, white crests forming
and breaking on either side, when a large sea made up
directly in front of her. The wave struck the little boat
with sufficient force to broach her, while water poured in
over the side and drowned the outboard motor. It was
fortunate that Captain Weems was lying in the bottom at
that moment, or Wee Diver undoubtedly would have
filled and sunk. As it was, quick-witted Vital grabbed an
oar and, using it as a paddle, maneuvered the boat so
that its bow was again headed into the sea. He held it there
while the wet and startled captain scrambled to a sitting
position and started to bail.

Meanwhile Ed headed Reef Diver toward them, and
Kemp, on our bow, prepared to heave a line as soon as
we should be near enough. Vital paddled madly to keep
from capsizing. With skillful handling, Ed maneuvered
Reef Diver to a position in front of the toiling men. He
then turned her bow into the seas and, reversing the
power, backed the little cruiser slowly in toward the
breakers. We were within fifteen feet of Wee Diver before
Kemp was able to cast a line in her direction. Then Ed put
the power ahead and we towed her slowly seaward until
they had cleared the rocks on either side. We then turned
and, paralleling the reef, headed west with Wee Diver still
in tow. We were all relieved after the narrow escape.

I returned to the cabin at this point so as not to miss
any more of our search than necessary. Once I poked my
head outside to see how the small boat was making out,
for Reef Diver was bouncing about a great deal in the big
seas.

Search for the Santa Maria 219

Vital was sitting in Wee Diver's stern, holding his
oar like a paddle, guiding the little boat through the tre-
mendous waves which chased us astern. On his face was
the rapt look I had seen him wear when shooting rapids
in a canoe in his native Canada, while the boat coursed
from side to side like an aquaplane. I marveled at this
French-Canadian, who, until a few years before, had
never been out of the northern bush. How quickly he had
made the transition from forest to sea, accustoming himself
to life on a heaving deck, and mastering the mechanics of
the intricate equipment aboard Sea Diver. He was indis-
pensable to the success of our voyage.

Captain Weems was not to be seen. He was evidently
on his stomach again, looking through the glass, deter-
mined not to miss a square inch of bottom.

By the time we had rounded the end of the reef and
returned to Sea Diver, the sea was too rough to risk work-
ing the outer reef any more that day. Back in port, Ed and
Vital set out in Reef Diver to make further tests with the
magnetometer, which they hoped to use on Le Grand
Mouton reef the next day. Captain Weems and I, escorted
by M. Beck, hunted up the Dominican consul in order
to secure papers for our eventual arrival in Puerto Plata,
for we planned to leave the following week for the Silver
shoals.

We returned from this errand just in time to welcome
aboard Ambassador Davis, who, with his wife and party,
was making an official visit to Cap Haitien that weekend.
The ambassador had heard about our discovery of the
Columbus-type anchor and evidently wanted to see it.
That night we had dinner with the Davises and their group.

We started out the next morning on our final day of
search. It was our last opportunity to locate the Santa
Maria before leaving for the Silver shoals. Since we had
found the ancient anchor on Le Grand Mouton reef, we

220 Sea Diver

figured we should return there and examine the bottom
more thoroughly. After all, the missing ring end might be
somewhere on the shoal, imbedded in the coral, with the
remainder of the Santa Maria lying near it.

We did not realize until after we had anchored behind
the bank that we might have difficulty in relocating the
spot. We had made two errors. The men had removed the
yellow buoy which marked the location after raising the
anchor, and we had not thought to bring Charlie along
on this second trip to show us the way. We combed the
area thoroughly all morning but never came upon the spot
where the ancient anchor had lain.

We would still have enlisted Charlie’s help had we
been able to bring him back from town that afternoon, but
by noon the sea had become too rough for us to continue.
Once more it was brought home to us how difficult it is
to locate a definite spot on the ocean bottom, even with
the best of bearings.

Our time had run out, and we had not found Colum-
bus’s flagship. The following day we would officially pre-
sent the ancient anchor to the city of Cap Haitien, re-
plenish our water and supplies, and make ready to leave
for the Silver shoals. But Ed was resolved that when his
stint there was ended, he would return to Cap Haitien
and continue the search for the Santa Maria.

We were up at dawn the next morning to ready ship
for the ceremony, which was to take place on the municipal
docks at noon. We scrubbed and polished Sea Diver until
she shone, broke out all her flags from the masthead, and
arranged our choicest relics, pieces of eight and gold dou-
bloons, for display.

Then, when we had moved Sea Diver from her moor-
ing to the dock, the men rigged the anchor from the small
boom so that it could be swung ashore easily. Sea Diver
and the ancient relic suspended above her deck immedi-

Search for the Santa Maria 221

ately became such a center of attraction that the Port
Captain found it necessary to mount a guard on our aft
deck in order to prevent an increasing number of sight-
seers from coming aboard.

As the noon hour approached, the dock swarmed with
people and cars. We welcomed aboard Prefect Sam and
his wife, who had arranged a gala dinner in our honor
that night; Mme. Magloire, sister of Haiti’s president; and
Colonel Chassagne, who invited us to his home for cham-
pagne after the ceremony. Soon after, Ambassador Davis
and his party arrived.

The anchor hung from the rigging above the deck,
slim and white in its coating of ancient coral, awaiting the
signal to be swung ashore into the truck which would carry
it to Army headquarters. Sea Diver was crowded and so
was the dock.

When the moment arrived, Prefect Sam, Ambassador
Davis, Ed, Captain Weems and I lined up on the dock
near the anchor. Ed made the presentation to the prefect,
who then accepted it for the city to the cheers of the crowd,
while the anchor was eased into the back of the truck.
Then it seemed that everyone on the dock flocked aboard
Sea Diver. For a while we were very busy greeting our
guests.

This was indeed a contrast to the first week we had
spent near this same dock, indifferently received and com-
pletely frustrated in our efforts. We could now appreciate
that most of the delay had occurred because we had ar-
rived in the midst of Holy Week and a national holiday.
Certainly no one could be warmer and friendlier than
these same people, now that we had come to know them.
They were as pleased as ourselves that we had found this
evidence of Columbus's first visit to Hispaniola.

Colonel Chassagne assured us the relic would be care-
fully guarded at Army headquarters until a suitable place

9992 Sea Diver

could be prepared for it. He urged us to hurry back and
continue our search for the flagship. Ed, disappointed at
having to leave at this time, promised a swift return. He
had already cabled Mendel Peterson of our find and looked
forward to his joining Sea Diver for the following weeks.
Pete would then come back to Haiti with Ed to make a
more positive identification of the anchor.

Some five weeks later, after an adventurous interval
at the Silver shoals and their vicinity, Sea Diver was an-
chored once more in Cap Haitien harbor. Among her
crew was Mendel Peterson, who had come aboard during
a stopover at Turks island.

No sooner had the party completed formalities with
the customs than they headed for Army headquarters,
where the anchor still reposed. In the clear sunlight of
the drill yard, Pete subjected the ancient relic to a minute
inspection, as he wielded calipers and chisel and tape.

It unquestionably dated back to the time of Columbus
and could very well have come from the admiral’s flagship,
he said. He noted that the crescent shape of the arms
placed it before the seventeenth century, when V-shaped
anchors were first made. /

_. The anchor was almost completely oxidized, he
pointed out, with only an eighth inch of sound metal left
at the core of the three-inch cross section. It must have
lain in salt water a very long time to form a coating of
calcerous matter an inch and a quarter thick. For compari-
son he cited the anchor from the Looe, which had gone
down in the Florida keys in the eighteenth century, yet
had less than a quarter inch of coating when found.

Of course, Pete said, our anchor could have been lost
by one of the ships which accompanied the admiral on
his second voyage to Hispaniola in 1493. There was no way
of knowing. If the anchor in the Port-au-Prince museum

Search for the Santa Maria 223

should prove to be similar, however, it would be a strong
indication that the two had come from the same sunken
ship.

It would not be surprising for two similar anchors to
turn up, he explained, for it was customary in those days
for ships to carry several anchors. When a ship was help-
less off a lee shore, her anchors were often the only thing
to stand between her and shipwreck. A ship like the Santa
Maria normally would have carried two large anchors on
deck at the bow and one or two astern. There would have
been additional anchors in the hold, for it was not un-
common to lose anchors at sea. He said the Santa Maria
probably carried an even larger number on this vovage, as
no seaman of Columbus’s ability would have set out with-
out several spares.

The following day Pete and Ed flew to Port-au-Prince
to inspect the famous anchor which had been found in the
muddy bottom of the Grande Riviere in the eighteenth
century. One of Haiti’s most prized possessions, it was
housed in the National Museum.

At first glance it presented a completely different ap-
pearance from the one we had found on the ocean floor.
It stood more than three feet taller and was crowned with
a large, hand-wrought-iron ring. At its base the curved
arms ended in sharply pointed flukes, which were missing
on our find. But the greatest difference was in the look of
the structure itself, for it was long and slim and dark in
color, while the one from the bottom of the sea was thick
and heavy with coral.

It was hard to believe that the two anchors had any-
thing at all in common. But after examining it long and
carefully, Pete finally delivered his opinion. “The simi-
larity would be striking,” he said, “if the anchor at Cap
Haitien were not broken and corroded.”

224 Sea Diver

He explained the difference in corrosion: the Port-
au-Prince anchor had lain in alluvial river soil, where it
was seldom, if ever, exposed to salt; while our anchor had
been exposed constantly to the electrolytic action of sea
water for nearly five centuries. Very little corrosion takes
place in fresh water or mud, he said.

The two anchors were of the same type of construc-
tion, Pete found. The arms and shank were of the same
approximate weight and cross-sectional size. The Port-au-
Prince anchor measured sixty inches from fluke to fluke,
while our anchor—minus the flukes, which had completely
corroded away—measured fifty-five inches. The complete
anchor was 117% inches long, while the broken one meas-
ured 78 inches. The missing section of shank and ring
would easily make up this difference. The two anchors
originally could have been duplicates.

“I believe these anchors definitely came from a ship-
wreck,” Pete declared, “for it is most unlikely that a ship
would otherwise lose its two main anchors in the same har-
bor. As the Santa Maria was probably the only ship of that
period to go down in Cap Haitien harbor, it seems very
logical that both anchors came from her.”

He later took samples of the metal from both relics
to be tested by the U.S. Bureau of Standards. Their reports
confirmed that the two anchors were fashioned from iron
of the same type and period.

It was Ed’s intention to continue his search for the
Santa Maria during this second visit to Cap Haitien. But
he had not reckoned on the weather. This time, instead
of high winds and rough seas, he found that the rainy
season had commenced, and that swollen rivers and
streams were dumping quantities of mud into the harbor.
The water, which had been clear in the spring, was so

Search for the Santa Maria 225

fouled that it was impossible to see an object three feet
away. Any underwater exploration was out of the ques-
tion.

Disappointed, he was forced to give up any further
attempt to locate the Santa Maria. Instead, he took Reef
Diver to examine the coast between Limonade Bord de
Mer and the mouth of the Grande Riviére. Somewhere on
this shore, he was sure, Columbus had unloaded the sal-
vage from the Santa Maria, for it was the only section of
coast where mangrove did not grow right to the water's
edge.

He made two landings, one at the town and one just
east of the delta at the mouth of the river. Each time, he
found that the bank shelved so steeply that it was possible
to drop the bow anchor a hundred feet offshore and then
ease Reef Diver back on the line until another anchor
could be carried ashore and sunk in the sand. There were
native fishing boats secured in similar fashion in both
places.

Upon going ashore he found that the Grande Riviére
was deep enough to be navigable except for the delta at
the mouth, which could be crossed in a shallow-draft boat
only at high tide. The low, muddy ground which was
formed by the river's deposit extended for perhaps a
quarter to a half mile inland before a change in the char-
acter of trees and vegetation indicated solid ground.

It was up this river that St.-Méry had recorded the
finding of the anchor now at Port-au-Prince. Could it have
been the same anchor which Dr. Chanca, Columbus's
physician on his second voyage, had reported seeing near
a cluster of rude Indian shacks on the shore as he accom-
panied Columbus from the burned and destroyed Navi-
dad? “. . . an anchor belonging to the ship which the
Admiral had lost here on the previous voyage,” he had
written. St.-Méry had conjectured that the anchor which

226 Sea Diver

Dr. Chanca had seen on the shore had not been moved,
but that the mouth of the river had gradually built out
into the sea beyond it, because of “the frequent high waters
of this river and the immense quantity of earth and of
sand which was carried from the mountains to the sea.”

Ed found the delta and the muddy flats near the mouth
of the Grande Riviére, through which he waded, an indi-
cation of its constantly changing contours, for on St.-Méry’s
map of this area, made in 1796, had appeared a deep in-
dentation in the shore line, where, today, the land jutted
into the sea. If Navidad were located on solid ground up
the Grande Riviére, it must necessarily have been some
distance inland.

Ed returned to Cap Haitien very little wiser as to
the actual location of Navidad, but with some new ideas.
He explained these to me when next I joined him at the
Caicos islands late in June.

Following Morison’s theories as to the location of the
wreck, Ed pointed out, we had searched all of the reefs
which the Santa Maria might have struck on a course from
Picolet point to Limonade Bord de Mer if she had sailed
between the barrier reef and the inner line of reefs. But if
Columbus were heading for Guacanagari’s village, and it
was in the vicinity of the Grande Riviere, he would have
taken the more open and accessible passage between the
inner line of reefs and shore. In this case he might have
gone aground on a shoal lying less than a mile from the
sandy shore just east of Cape Sable and directly in the path
of such a course. There is a wide expanse of deep water
both on the outer side of the shoal and between it and the
shore.

A study of an air photograph of this area indicated that
the shoal consisted more of sand than coral. We felt sure
that our anchor had lain for many centuries on a sandy
bottom while its thick coating of sand coral was formed.

Search for the Santa Maria 227

In clear water the anchor could easily have been spotted
from the surface and picked up by a fisherman as a weight
for his fishing trap, then brought to the reefs we had
searched, which were hard coral rising from a hard bottom
with scarcely a trace of sand. This shoal nearer shore, on
the other hand, while it might contain coral rock, was
largely composed of sand and mud from the river mouth.

We continued to study all the material we could get
our hands on. It seemed more and more plausible that
what was left of the Santa Maria might be buried in
this shoal which we had failed to investigate. Of one thing
we were convinced: the ship had not gone down on any
of the reefs we had originally explored.

It seemed a shame that this possible solution had not
occurred to us sooner. But that is the way with any kind
of research. It is only by eliminating the false assumptions
and carefully following every new clue that progress is
made. We looked forward eagerly to investigating this
new lead when we once again returned to Cap Haitien,
for our finding of the anchor had convinced us that some-
day the remains of the Santa Maria would also be found.

228 Sea Diver

Part
Four
The

Silver

Shoals

At last Ed and I were on our way to the
Silver shoals, mecca of every treasure hunter for the past
three hundred years. The greatest treasure hunt of our
lives had begun. ;

Silver shoals! The very name was enough to send
thrills of excitement up and down the spines of everyone
aboard Sea Diver.

Ever since our first diving expedition to the Florida
keys five years before, when we had heard of the Silver
shoals during night-long bull sessions with the other divers,
Ed and I had read and talked about these far-off reefs,
where, more than three centuries ago, a Spanish galleon
had gone down with millions in gold, silver and precious
jewels. We had speculated constantly on our chances of
seeking and finding the remains of this fortune, for there
is not a chart in existence which correctly portrays the
extent of these banks and the exact locations of the thou-
sands of dangerous reef formations which are scattered
over them.

The Silver Shoals 231

Barney and Jane Crile were with us in those first
sessions, leaders in the plans we made, discarded, and made
again to visit these shoals one day. Now they were with
us once again, as we set out from Cap Haitien on April
twenty-fifth, to make our dream come true—a dream of
exploring these fabulous reefs, of diving in the depths of
these mysterious waters, and of succeeding, where count-
less others had failed, in locating the remains of this famous
treasure wreck.

Also aboard Sea Diver was Glenn Krause, a civilian
employee of the hydrographic department of the United
States Air Force in Germany. He had joined us that morn-
ing, just before we sailed. Glenn had always led an ad-
venturous life, numbering among his experiences a part
in one of the Navy’s expeditions to the South Pole. He was
a map maker, a photographer, and a seaman—a long,
thin, very bald man in his forties, with the nonchalant air
of the adventurer.

Glenn had come as an emissary for Alexander Korga-
noff, that White Russian historian and researcher from
Paris who had visited the Silver shoals as part of an expedi-
tion a few years earlier. The expedition had ended abruptly
with a mutiny of the native crew, which he had assembled
in the Dominican Republic. Nothing daunted, Korganoft
had returned to the shoals a short time later in a small
sailing boat. There he claimed he had located the site of
the galleon wreck, spotted an anchor, and, he was con-
vinced, had seen the coral-covered hulk of part of the ship.

Ed and Korganoff had been in communication with
each other for more than a year, as the Russian was arrang-
ing a second trip to the shoals at about the same time we
had planned to go. They had agreed to combine forces
and to meet in that area soon after the middle of April.

Our other plans, to search for the Santa Maria off Cap
Haitien and, later in the summer, to trace the course of

232 Sea Diver

Columbus through the Bahamas, had all been made around
this date with the French group, and Ed had recruited his
volunteer crews for the entire cruise with this in mind.
Consequently, when Korganoff was unable to organize his
part in the venture in time to reach the shoals as planned,
we were forced to carry through our plans for the trip as
scheduled. It was finally arranged that Glenn Krause would
accompany our party as Korganoft’s representative. If we
found anything of consequence, Korganoff was to be noti-
fied so that he could join us.

We left Cap Haitien in the early afternoon, and soon
had Point Picolet abeam. From there Ed charted a course
toward the Silver banks, 160 miles away.

Our course skirted the outer edge of Monte Cristi
shoals and the low sandy islands known as the Seven
Brothers, which extend in toward Monte Cristi itself, that
famous pavilion-shaped mountain at the eastern end of
Cap Haitien bay which Columbus noted in his Journal
as he coasted along the northern shores of Hispaniola.

By dark we were well out at sea, knowing that we had
had our last glimpse of land until our adventure at the
Silver shoals should be ended. For there is no land near
these dangerous banks, only ocean for scores of miles in
all directions, and the brown look of coral just beneath
the surface, marked here and there by foaming white
breakers.

It was here, in the seventeenth century, that a Spanish
galleon, heavily laden with the wealth of the New World
and badly crippled by a hurricane, had foundered as it
sought to reach the Spanish harbor in Puerto Rico for re-
pairs.

Many are the tales which have come down through
the years about this lost treasure ship. Stories emanating
from Jamaica, from Puerto Plata, from New England and
even from England tell of a whole silver fleet going

The Silver Shoals 233

aground in 1644 on the Ambrosian banks, as the Silver
shoals were known at that time. One of the ships, said to
be the flagship of the fleet, was found and salvaged in 1687
by a New England sea captain, William Phips. Phips took
from the wreck more than a million and a half English
pounds’ value in treasure. The other ships of the silver fleet
were never located, although the reefs were searched ex-
haustively by the hundreds of boats which flocked to this
area after word got out of Phips’s success.

Korganoff, after many years of research in the archives
of Spain, had a different version of the story of the wreck.
Of course he has had access to records which were com-
pletely unavailable to the rest of the world in the seven-
teenth century, when Spain and the other European pow-
ers were at each others’ throats.

The story that he unearthed in the Spanish archives
was that of the Nuestra Sefiora de la Concepcion, the flag-
ship of a fleet of thirty ships which sailed from Havana for
Spain on September 13, 1659. The galleon was in no con-
dition to put to sea. The protests of her admiral that certain
repairs must be made before setting out on such a journey
were overruled by the General of the Fleet, who ordered
him to prepare to sail immediately.

The admiral of the Nuestra Sefiora was also disturbed
because the general had concentrated the bulk of the huge
treasure which the fleet was carrying on the admiral’s ship
and his own. Both ships were old and rotten. Their hulls
had not been cared for since they had left Spain, more than
a year before. The admiral had insisted to no avail that
the valuable cargo should be distributed more equally
among the many ships of the fleet.

The silver fleet had been at sea only a day and part of
the night when the Nuestra Sefiora began to leak so badly
that even the impatient general conceded she would have

234 Sea Diver

to return to Havana for repair. Upon the fleet’s arrival
there, divers were sent down to examine the Nuestra
Sefiora’s hull and to patch the rotten timbers. Twenty-
four hours later the convoy got under way once more.

This time it had just reached the narrowest part of
the Bahama canal, between Florida and the Bahama is-
lands, when it was set upon by a hurricane. The Nuestra
Sefiora was tossed and beaten about by the huge waves.
Her sails were torn away in the violent winds, and the crew
hastened to cut down the tall masts, which threatened to
overturn the galleon. The dozy timbers of her leaky hull,
wrenched apart by the violence of the seas, let in such
quantities of water that in spite of desperate work at the
pumps, the ship was in constant danger of foundering.

However, when the storm was over, the Nuestra
Sefiora was still afloat, but separated from the other ships,
and well north of the spot where the hurricane had first
struck. The admiral, after surveying the damage, decided
it would be necessary to head for the nearest Spanish base
at Puerto Rico for repairs before continuing the voyage
across the ocean. But first he ordered the ship hove to for
several days while masts were jury-rigged and emergency
sails prepared. The pumps were operated continuously
in an attempt to lower the level of the water in the holds,
and wherever it was possible, repairs were made to the
leaky hull from the inside.

At last the ship was able to get underway once more,
although sadly handicapped by her makeshift sails. Her
course carried her east until the ship’s pilots declared they
had gone far enough to clear the last outposts of the Ba-
hama islands. Then the Nuestra Senora was headed south.

The admiral protested that they had not gone far
enough to the east, and that if they changed course at this
point, it would bring them into dangerous waters along
the eastern shores of the Bahamas. The pilots refused to

The Silver Shoals 235

concede that he was right. Knowing that he must accept
their pronouncements because of Spanish naval law, the
admiral assembled the ship’s passengers and crew on deck
and publicly washed his hands in a basin of water, a sym-
bolic protest that he would not be responsible for the con-
sequences of the pilots’ decision.

About a week later, in the dark of night, the admiral
was suddenly awakened by a shout from the watch. A
frightened ship’s boy reported to him that there were reefs
in all directions. He hurried on deck and gave quick orders
to haul down the sails and cast over the anchors. Before
the galleon’s speed could be checked, however, she was in
the midst of the reefs; and before she could lose momen-
tum, the sharp coral was grating and tearing at her sides.

There was pandemonium on board as both passengers
and crew rushed topsides. The anchors had caught by now,
and the Nuestra Sefiora hung poised, her starboard side
bumping and scraping against the rocks as the ocean waves
rolled in from the sea. Otherwise she lay quiet. The admiral
surveyed the situation in despair, hoping that the anchor
lines would hold until daybreak, when it would be possible
to see the surroundings and determine what should be
done.

But the sea gave them no peace. One by one the heavy
hawsers which held the anchors snapped as they sawed
against the rough coral on the bottom. The longboats were
put overboard and manned to hold the ship off the rocks.
At dawn the admiral directed the oarsmen to tow the gal-
leon along a path of open water which showed ahead
through the reefs. Unfortunately, when the crew attempted
to raise the anchors which still held the ship, they dis-
covered that they were caught fast in the coral on the bot-
tom. The admiral gave orders to cut the cables which held
the anchors and to abandon them.

As the ship moved slowly among the reefs in the wake

236 Sea Diver

of the longboats which towed her, she was carried side-
wards by the tide, first into one rocky head and then an-
other. Several of the twenty bronze cannon with which
she was armed were sacrificed as anchors to hold her from
drifting into these menacing obstacles. Each time, they
caught in the rugged coral on the bottom, and had to be
cut loose in order to allow the galleon to continue. By
nightfall only a few hundred yards had been gained, and
there were still reefs on every side. The admiral gave or-
ders to put more of the bronze cannon overboard as anchors
to hold the ship fast until daylight.

Perhaps the ship still would have survived. But in the
middle of the night a wind sprang up, causing the heavy
galleon to tug powerfully against her moorings. The anchor
lines, which had been straining for hours against the knife-
like coral on the bottom, suddenly began snapping one
after the other.

The Nuestra Sefora was aroused from her restless
slumbers, and, with a slight tremor through her planking,
slowly drifted toward the reefs. She picked up speed as
the wind caught the high stern, and when she reached the
rocks, she carried upon them sideways wer such force as
to rip great holes in her hull.

The galleon hung there awhile. Then, as a particularly
large sea rolled in, she freed herself momentarily while
the stern drifted around, and grounded again, this time for
good, caught in the narrow valley between two reefs.

Needless to say, a fortune such as was carried by the
Nuestra Senora could not be lost to the world for long
without efforts being made to find and salvage it. The won-
der is that the Spanish did not return immediately to the
wreck, led by some of the survivors who had managed to
reach Hispaniola. But it was a difficult time for Spanish
shipping, for the rich traffic between Spain and her colo-

The Silver Shoals 237)

nies was constantly threatened by pirates and the daring
privateers sent out from England and France to harry it.

The waters surrounding the West Indies in the seven-
teenth century were a constant battleground for des-
peradoes of every nation, intent on seizing for themselves
a part of the wealth which flowed so freely from the New
World to the Old. Spain’s prestige and power, established
by reason of her being first to discover and exploit this part
of the world, was gradually giving ground before the on-
slaughts of her enemies, led by men like the English Mor-
gan and Drake.

France was by now well established in western His-
paniola, in the wake of the “pirate colony” on Tortuga is-
land, a motley crew representative of all the seafaring na-
tions, which had finally come under French leadership.
And England possessed colonies in the Bahamas, Barbados,
Bermuda and Jamaica as well as on the North American
continent. English sea power was in the ascendancy, a
powerful weapon which she would use to mold the world
to her pattern for centuries to come, while Spain, with
the destruction of the Spanish Armada, was already on the
downward path.

During the years between the sinking of the Spanish
galleon and its eventual discovery by William Phips, there
are on record attempts by the ships of many nations to
seek its resting place. In 1683, Charles II of England com-
missioned two ships, the Bonetta and the Faulcon, under
Captain George Churchill and Captain Edward Stanley,
to discover and salvage the Hispaniola treasure, as it was
then called. The two ships spent nearly three years in the
vicinity of the silver banks, “ever scanning the sea for a
lone rock rising high above the water.” This lone rock
was mentioned many times in early accounts of unsuccess-
ful searches.

It was during this time that a sailor, Thomas Smith,

238 Sea Diver

told the English sea captains that he had seen the Spanish
wreck on the Ambrosian banks. He described the location
as near a rock which rose up nearly fifty feet, while the
rest of the reefs barely cleared the water. The hull lay
about forty feet away, wedged between the rocks, and
on the surface of the rock he said he had seen “sows and
pigs of silver heaped high.” He claimed that the owner
of his ship had refused to attempt the salvage of the treas-
ure because a gale had come up and he was afraid of losing
his ship on the reefs, as he did not have sufficient cable
and anchors.

The English captains engaged Smith to guide them
to the spot, but after extracting all the information they
could from him, Captain Stanley was so sure they would
be able to find the location that they sailed secretly from
Puerto Plata one night, leaving Smith behind. The result
was that they never came upon the treasure ship. During
the search, one of the ships struck a reef. While trying to
free it, they lost all their anchors on the sharp coral and had
to return to port to replace them. They were recalled to
England before they could make another attempt.

Meanwhile, in New England, a young sea captain, Wil-
liam Phips, with adventure in his blood and a desire for
quick wealth whetted by tales of lost treasure ships, had
just returned from a partially successful trip in search of
three valuable wrecks on the north Bahama banks. While
on this voyage he had garnered tales of the Spanish treas-
ure ship said to be lying beneath the water on the banks
north of Hispaniola. What he learned inspired him to set
out for England to enlist the aid of the Crown in provid-
ing men and equipment to salvage the wrecks on the Ba-
hama banks and search for the Spanish galleon.

He must have been most convincing, for he succeeded
in obtaining from King Charles II a commission to captain

The Silver Shoals 239

the Rose Algier, a small ship of eighteen guns and ninety-
five men, on a voyage to the West Indies to look for the
treasure.

He was gone almost two years, during which time he
scoured the Ambrosian banks and the waters north of
Hispaniola in vain. The rough, unsavory characters who
first comprised his crew soon became discouraged with this
unrewarding search for treasure and demanded that Phips
turn pirate with the Rose Algier. He refused, outwitting
them in two separate attempts at mutiny. He then hastened
to Jamaica, where he discharged the dissenters and signed
on new hands to continue his search.

This time he headed for Puerto Plata, the port on the
north shore of Hispaniola nearest the banks on which the
wreck was said to be. After scouting about the town for
several days, he had the good fortune to strike up an ac-
quaintance with an old sailor who was a survivor from the
shipwrecked galleon. He is said to have given Phips very
careful directions as to the location of the wreck. Phips
headed back to the Ambrosian banks and continued the
search, but was finally forced to give up, as his supplies
were running low. He returned to England without success.

Although Phips still felt sure that he could locate the
wreck, he found that the Crown was no longer interested
to the extent of paying the cost of a freshly equipped ex-
pedition. But again fortune was with him. He succeeded
in enlisting the interest and financial support of the Duke
of Albemarle and a few wealthy friends who were willing
to speculate on the venture. They obtained a patent from
the Crown, granting them an exclusive right to the wrecks
that might be discovered, provided the king received a
tenth of their gain.

Some time later Phips set sail for his old hunting
grounds on the Ambrosian banks, this time with two ships:
the James and Mary, a two-hundred-ton ship carrying

240 Sea Diver

twenty-two guns, and the Henry of London, a small frigate
of fifty tons with ten guns. Phips commanded the James
and Mary. He placed the frigate under the command of
Francis Rogers, who had been his second mate on the Rose.
The two ships had good salvaging equipment for their day,
and they carried a stock of goods for trade in the West
Indies ports, in case the quest for the treasure ship should
fail.

Arriving at Puerto Plata, Phips lingered nearly a
month, preparing his equipment, putting aboard supplies
and trading with the inhabitants. During this time he and
his men constructed a periagua from a cottonwood tree,
so large that the finished boat would carry eight to ten
oarsmen. This craft, he figured, could be taken in close
to the reefs, where it would be too hazardous to risk his
sailing ships.

On January 13, 1687, he sent Captain Rogers with the
Henry to search for the wreck on the banks some twenty
leagues to the north of Puerto Plata. The frigate was gone
nearly a month. Rogers returned to report in seeming de-
jection that they had failed once more to find their ob-
jective. But this was only his strange idea of humor. That
night, while he and Phips were sitting around the table, he
produced from beneath it a sow of silver worth two or
three hundred pounds.

In reply to Phips’s joyful questioning, he told of days
of fruitless searching with the small boats in the vicinity of
the “boylers” on the north bank of reefs. The Henry, mean-
while, was anchored about a mile and a half to the south
of the reefs in the deeper water of the banks.

One wonders what they used for search in those days.
Did they have anything similar to the glass-bottomed
bucket which the Bahamian natives use today in hunting
for crawfish? If so, the crude glass of that day must have
made it difficult to see very clearly. Or did they send swim-

The Silver Shoals 24]

mers out to dive on likely places, straining their eyes to
penetrate the depths of water to the bottom? We can be
sure that at least one person was stationed on the highest
part of the boat, his eyes glued to the water, even as Kemp,
with his “X-ray” eyes, studies the bottom today.

Came their last day of search before returning to
Puerto Plata. Rogers was in one small boat with a diver
and oarsmen. The periagua carried two other divers with
its crew. Deeply discouraged at having failed to sight any
evidence of the wreck on this, their last attempt, they were
returning to the Henry at the end of the afternoon when
one of the divers saw an unusually beautiful sea feather in
the clear water below. He went overboard to retrieve it
and take back to the ship as a curio.

He returned with the purple feather and the exciting
news that he had seen several cannon lying on the bottom.
As he handed the Gorgonia over the side of the boat, a
blackened coin was seen clinging to its base. At last they
had found the wreck!

Rogers sent the diver down again, and this time he
returned with a “sow.” Before buoying the spot and return-
ing to the Henry for the night, they picked up “two sows,
51 pieces-of-eight, a bar and a champeen and some broken
plate.”

Three days later, when a blackening sky and strong
northwest winds threatened a coming storm and caused
Rogers's men to halt their salvaging and head for Puerto
Plata, they carried with them a quantity of sows and “dow-
boys” of silver and nearly three thousand silver coins.

Upon hearing news of the discovery, Phips hurriedly
completed his trading in the port. After taking on supplies
of food and water, the two ships set out for the banks on
the night of February sixteenth. Six days later they an-
chored near the wreck, “the reef making like to a half
moon.”

242 Sea Diver

“By Mr. Covell’s observations we hoisted our pinnace.
Mr. Covell and Mr. Strong and two of our divers went in
to the wreck and just as day began to shut in they came
on board bringing with them out of the wreck 89 whole
dollars, 51 half dollars.” So read the entry in Captain Phips’s
log of the James and Mary on that historic day.

They did not attempt to sail either of the ships near
the reefs where the wreck was located, but went back and
forth each day with the pinnace, the periagua and the
ships’ boats. For nearly two months they worked the wreck
day after day, with the exception of Sundays, which Phips
insisted they should observe as a day of rest. At the end
of each day, Phips recorded in the ship’s log fresh figures
of treasure removed from the wreck and stored aboard the
James and Mary.

They had been on the spot less than a week when
they were astonished to see sails approaching. They were
soon joined by two smaller vessels, one under the command
of William Davis of Bermuda and the other under Abram
Atherley of Jamaica. Phips had become acquainted with
both men on his previous voyage, when he was search-
ing the wrecks on the Bahama banks. He soon made a deal
with them to work on half shares in return for the use of
their boats and divers.

Several weeks later, Davis’s sloop damaged a rudder
on one of the reefs and was forced to head for Jamaica for
repairs. Her captain promised to keep the discovery of the
treasure a secret and to return as speedily as possible.

When the sloop did not return at the expected time,
Phips became worried that she might have been captured
by French pirates, who were known to be haunting the
waters in the vicinity of the island of Tortuga. He lived in
constant fear that word of their find might have leaked out,
and that pirates might suddenly descend upon them and
rob them of the treasure.

The Silver Shoals 243

At last he could bear the suspense no longer, and he
set sail for Turks island in the James and Mary, accom-
panied by the Henry. He left his divers and salvage equip-
ment behind on Atherley’s shallop, with instructions to
continue working the wreck for the next week, while await-
ing the return of the missing sloop. If it had not showed
up by the end of that time, the shallop was to bring what
had been salvaged in the meantime and join him at Turks
island.

When Atherley later appeared at Turks island, he
had seen nothing of the sloop which was expected from
Jamaica. During the additional week he had remained on
the banks, however, he had salvaged more than a ton of
silver to add to that already stored aboard the James and
Mary. Phips paid Atherley and his men for their share in
the enterprise, and then the two British ships set sail for
England, where they arrived on June sixth and were re-
ceived with great acclaim.

Phips delivered over to the Duke of Albemarle, his
other backers, and to the Crown a fortune in gold and sil-
ver, in addition to jewels and the bronze cannon which had
been hauled from the bottom near the wreck. He related
the circumstances of his abrupt departure to them and
urged an immediate return to secure the balance of the
treasure before it could be salvaged by others, now that
the news of its discovery was out.

This time he had no trouble in obtaining support for
another voyage. Five months later, three heavily armed
ships were equipped and ready to set out. One, the Fore-
sight, was furnished by King James himself, under the
command of Sir John Narborough. These were to be joined
on the banks by two guard ships, both fourth rates, the
Assistance and the Faulcon.

Phips and his escorts arrived back at the Ambrosias
early in December. As they approached the vicinity of

244 Sea Diver

the wreck, they were astonished to see that the waters
thereabouts were dotted with ships. Like vultures they
had gathered from every port around to snatch what they
could of the treasure feast so lavishly spread on the ocean
floor. There were ships from Jamaica, Barbados, Bermuda,
the Bahamas and even faraway New England.

When the armed vessels of the English appeared,
many of these boats left precipitately. The captains of
those which stayed promised to turn over what they had
secured on shares, and to continue working with Captain
Phips in return for a portion of the finds. However, the
small divisions they were promised did not prove sufficient
to keep them at the arduous task, and one by one they cut
their cables in the night and sailed away.

This time the wreck proved very disappointing to the
searchers. Phips’s divers had already skimmed the cream
on his previous visit, and the scores of small boats which
had scoured the spot while Phips was gone had removed
whatever else was easily come by. Now it was necessary to
break up the coral that had grown over the wreckage and
hoist great chunks of the rock to the decks of the boats,
where they were pounded apart to uncover the valuables
within. It was slow and difficult labor, and it taxed the
strength and ingenuity of the salvagers to the limit.

During their search, the divers reported to Phips the
discovery of a large section of the ship lying on the bottom,
so heavily encrusted in coral that it was impossible to
break into it with their pikes and other equipment. They
were sure that it contained a large portion of the gold and
silver which the ship had carried, but their heaviest assaults
failed to penetrate it, and they were finally forced to give
up.

: The English ships stayed on the banks and worked
the wreck until May eighth, then headed back to England
by way of Turks island. They arrived there on August

The Silver Shoals 245

twelfth, carrying nine tons of silver and very little gold,
a relatively small reward for their efforts when one con-
sidered the high hopes with which they had set out.

The small sailing craft which were frightened away
by Phips’s return undoubtedly made a killing while he
was in England preparing for the final expedition. Phips
must have known when he allowed the sloop to return
to Jamaica for repair on that previous voyage that word of
his discovery would soon leak out. And of course, when
the James and Mary and the Henry stopped over at Turks
island on their way back to England, there is no doubt that
the news must have spread from his sailors and divers to
the crews of other ships sailing in and out of the port.

It was a hard decision Phips was called upon to make
during that first salvage attempt—whether to continue
working the wreck and securing more treasure at the risk
of being raided and losing all, or to take his winnings and
go back to England while there was yet time. He no doubt
made the wise decision.

In addition to allotting Phips twelve thousand English
pounds for his part in the expeditions, King James made
him a knight. Furthermore, soon after Sir William Phips
returned to his patiently waiting wife in Boston, he was
named Governor of the Colony of Massachusetts. Phips
was undoubtedly the luckiest and the most successful
treasure hunter the world has ever known.

It was ever thus. Rogers did the searching and found
the wreck. Yet to this day Captain Phips is given all the
credit, and he received the lion’s share of the spoils which
were recovered.

For many years thereafter, these dangerous and out-
of-the-way Ambrosian banks, which now became known
as the Silver banks, were the scene of continual searching

246 Sea Diver

by sailing ships from all of Europe and America. It was
generally believed that only a part of the treasure had
been raised from the galleon which Sir William Phips had
found. There was also much speculation as to whether only
one ship from the silver fleet had gone down, or whether
other ships from the same fleet had foundered somewhere
on this forty-mile stretch of reefs,

Fantastic stories were told wherever seamen gathered,
in the course of which more and more galleons sank be-
neath the waves, carrying ever-greater quantities of gold,
silver and jewels to the bottom.

Even in our own century, Captain Phips is still the
hero of many treasure tales. The story of his expeditions
has been recorded with fair accuracy, but the treasure
hunter of today can only guess at the facts of the loss of
the Spanish treasure. Was only one ship sunk? Or did a
whole fleet disappear? Did the ship which Phips salvaged
sail from Havana in 1644 or 1659? Did Phips and the other
salvagers who followed him get all the treasure, or did
they leave on the bottom, as some believe, an impenetrable
section of the hull containing millions more in gold and
silver?

If the remains of this treasure still lay on the bottom,
would it be possible for us to find and raise it with the aid
of modern diving equipment and underwater explosives?

On board Sea Diver we probably had the most com-
plete diving and salvage equipment available in the world
today for exploring waters such as those to be found on
the Silver banks. With our small glass-bottomed boats we
could search the entire area of reefs. With our magne-
tometer and metal detectors we would surely be able to
find indications of any metals covered by sand or coral.
With our up-to-date diving equipment we could reach any
spot underwater. And with our salvaging tools and equip-

The Silver Shoals 247

ment it would be possible to uncover and raise whatever
we might discover.

We had finally convinced ourselves that this was the
time and that, logically, we were the ones to make this one
more attempt to locate the long-lost treasure ship.

Subsequent research revealed that little was actually
known of the Silver shoals. We read several accounts of
adventurous voyages to these waters—each writer seem-
ingly intent on outdoing the other in the extravagance of
his descriptions of the wild seas, the treacherous reefs, and
the dangerous sharks, barracuda, octopi, and other sea life
that were said to inhabit these waters in great numbers.

We also read descriptions of the wreck itself, stand-
ing on the ocean floor as it had gone down centuries ago,
its decks littered with wreckage and its holds filled with
bars and treasure chests. Always it was so armored in
coral or so guarded by ferocious underwater monsters that
it had proved impossible for divers to approach or pene-
trate the hull, except in one case where the writer described
having been unexpectedly precipitated through the rot-
ting deck of the ancient wreck into its dark, terrifying hold.

We had discounted most of these stories. From their
descriptions we were more than doubtful that the writers
had ever come upon the actual location. We well knew that
it is impossible for a wooden ship to remain on the bot-
tom for any number of years in waters such as these with-
out the timbers breaking up or being destroyed by the ever-
present teredo worms. We knew that all telltale cannon
had been removed, and that the ship had sacrificed its
anchors in other areas to hold it off the reefs. There would
be very little evidence left to identify it.

There were other possible hazards. We did not know
just how dangerous to our own boat these reef-strewn
waters would be, or if we would be able to find a safe
place to anchor in case of storm. We also wondered if,

248 Sea Diver

there on the Silver shoals, we would encounter some of
those legendary deep-sea monsters which we were always
reading about but so far had never seen.

We were well aware that what we were about to at-
tempt would require more real seamanship, careful navi-
gation, and painstaking planning than anything we had
ever done before. There would be no margin for error
on the Silver shoals. We would be completely on our own,
no other ships within reach, and no shore stations within
range of our radio transmitter.

To find a secure anchorage would be a real problem.
When it came to searching the reefs with the small boats,
we would be in serious danger at times from the suction
of the boilers. When we went underwater, we could expect
to find a most perilous bottom with great jagged ridges
and pinnacles of coral reaching upward eight to twelve
fathoms. We would doubtless encounter fierce sharks from
the ocean deeps and schools of barracuda which used the
reefs as their feeding grounds.

Small wonder that we approached the Silver banks
with trepidation as well as expectation.

The Silver Shoals 249

The hydrographic charts depict the Silver
banks as a forty-mile-square area located in the open
waters of the Atlantic Ocean between the eastern end of
Hispaniola and the easternmost islands of the Bahamas.
The northern edge extends in a northwest-southeast direc-
tion, marked almost its entire length by a heavy concen-
tration of coral reefs, nearly a mile wide in places. The
southern line of the bank is about two thirds the length
of the northern. The water on the banks varies in depth
from six fathoms to twenty. In addition to the almost solid
line of reefs on the northern side, the charts show a thin
scattering of reefs on the other three sides.

The nearest harbor is Puerto Plata in the Dominican
Republic, more than eighty miles away. A hundred miles
to the northwest is Turks island, the first land to be en-
countered in that direction. Elsewhere there is only ocean
and more ocean, much of it nearly two miles in depth.

According to some of the accounts we had read, there
was one small exception—a lone monument of coral, rising

250 Sea Diver

out of the water even at the highest tide. This was said to
be close to the spot where the galleon had foundered. No
longer was it fifty feet high, as the sailor Smith had de-
scribed it to Stanley before that long-ago seventeenth-
century search; according to Korganoff, it now stood a
scant two feet above the water.

Ed did not expect to find the lone rock and the loca-
tion of the wreck too easily. He was frankly skeptical that
it was the only dry rock in that vast extent of reefs. He
was still disappointed that the day he had flown a distance
of nearly six hundred miles from Nassau to take air photo-
graphs of these reefs and to reconnoiter them, he had
encountered such heavy clouds and rain in the vicinity of
Turks island and south of there that he was unable to
reach the Silver shoals. How much simpler our task would
be if we had such an aerial picture to augment the crude
chart, left from the time of William Phips, for it was very
puzzling to try to visualize the pattern of a bank of reefs
from the deck of a small boat or even from the masthead.
Without the aid of such a picture, it would be very difficult
to locate the spot where the galleon had foundered.

That evening, as Sea Diver plowed along under the
guidance of the automatic pilot, Barney, Jane, Glenn
Krause, Ed and I gathered around the table in the main
cabin to go over the material we had accumulated among
us and to talk over a method of locating the wreck we
were seeking.

The Criles had arrived with a portfolio of papers and
charts which they had secured from an “armchair” treas-
ure hunter in Texas who had made it his hobby to figure
out the location of the Silver shoals treasure, but who had
no means of testing his conclusions. We also had the
seventeenth-century chart and the log from Phip’s ship,
the James and Mary. The hydrographic charts of the area
were of little use, for, though they indicated the total

The Silver Shoals 251

extent of the banks, with the relative depths, the reefs
themselves had never been accurately charted.

However, we were overjoyed to find that Glenn had
brought an air photograph of the reefs on the northern
banks, which he had secured from Navy sources, giving a
very accurate picture of their arrangement. This, with a
pen drawing which Korganoff had sent of the spot he had
investigated previously, gave us a fairly clear idea of the
area we were looking for.

As nearly as we could tell, all these sources agreed
that the galleon was located near the center of a thick
cluster of reefs which formed an inverted triangle on the
northern edge of the banks. The group of reefs lay some
distance in from the east end of the bank, and was bor-
dered on the west by a wide channel to the open water
north of the banks. To the east of this area, it could be seen
that the southern edge of the reefs formed two long half
moons. I recalled that Captain Phips’s log had recorded
anchoring the James and Mary near the wreck, “the reef
making like to a half moon.”

Our procedure, then, was to maintain Sea Diver's
course in deep water until daylight, then pick up the south
edge of the banks and cross them in a northeasterly direc-
tion until we came to the line of reefs which formed the
north edge of the banks. We would hope to strike this
northern edge somewhere to the east of the center of the
forty-mile-long area. It would then be up to us whether
we should turn east or west along it, to find the nest of
reefs with the lone dry rock which we were seeking.

As it was late in the evening and we knew that the
next day would be a strenuous one, Ed checked Sea
Diver's course and the log, assigned the watches for the
remainder of the night, and the rest of us turned in.

When Ed came on watch at daybreak, he discovered
that the automatic pilot had slipped slightly in the night,

252 Sea Diver

and Sea Diver had carried us several degrees south of the
intended course. A check of those on duty during the night
revealed that no one knew when our course had changed
or how long the ship had been heading in the new direc-
tion.

That is one of the difficulties of sailing with amateur
crews. They do not function with the clocklike precision
of trained personnel. Fortunately, in this instance, there
was no danger, as we had been in deep water all night
long. It was still impossible to pick up any indication of
bottom with the fathometer.

Ed corrected the course a few degrees to the north-
east and continued to take soundings until, at about nine
o'clock, the fathometer picked up depths of a hundred
feet. We steered this same course for another hour and a
half and then changed our heading to straight north,
thinking thus to intercept the northern line of reefs we
were seeking.

We were making a very unorthodox approach. Had
we headed for the Silver banks from Puerto Plata, as we
had originally intended, we could have made use of the
bearings given by Captain Phips in his log for reaching
the site of the wreck, as well as those of Korganoff and
others; but, coming from Cap Haitien as we did, we had
to figure it out for ourselves.

It was not long before we began to see isolated coral
heads around us, and soon we were forced to shift course
frequently to avoid them. Kemp took his station on the
pulpit, where he could keep an eye on the water depths
and the location of the heads, and Barney climbed the
mast to the crow’s-nest, where he could view miles of
startlingly clear blue-green water. The occasional coral
head appeared as a pale, lime-green blotch against it.
Glenn, Jane and I watched in mounting excitement and
anxiety as the formations of coral grew thicker and Ed

The Silver Shoals 953

disengaged the automatic pilot and took over the wheel
to steer a devious course between them.

A short time later Barney called from the masthead.
“Breakers on the starboard bow.”

Ed turned Sea Diver in the direction indicated, but
found that he was forced continuously to the southeast by
intervening coral heads. Suspense lay heavy on us all. We
knew from past experience that we could hunt for days,
even weeks, for the spot we were seeking. We had no bear-
ings to go by, no present-day accurate charting of these
rocks, and, because of our inaccurate course the night be-
fore, a very hazy idea of what part of the bank we were
on at the moment. We only knew that if we could find a
small dry rock just sticking its head above water, we might
be able to find the spot.

We were very lucky. For as we moved slowly along
in soundings of ten to fifteen fathoms, there was a hail
from the crow’s-nest. “Over there to the left, just off the
bow! I see a rock sticking up!” Barney was pointing with
his whole arm extended and shouting like a madman.

Down on the deck we had to use the binoculars, and
even then it was some time before we could spot the rock,
as Ed continued to edge the boat in its direction. Glenn
brought out the little sketch that Korganoff had given him.

As we drew closer, we could make out a narrow chan-
nel leading to the almost solid line of reefs ahead of us.
The dry rock was now plainly visible, sticking up from a
flat reef to our port.

The day was calm, and Kemp, on the pulpit, could
spot any dangerous heads well in advance. The moderate
sea was breaking gently over the reefs, leaving a slight
tracing of white to mark their location. Beyond the dry
rock we could now make out a circular area of deep water,
encircled by reefs except for the narrow channel just
ahead. The men debated whether we should follow it in

254 Sea Diver

and anchor Sea Diver in the quiet water within, or drop
our hook in the more open water outside.

“Let’s go on in,’ Ed said. “Kemp, keep a sharp look-
out for heads. I think there’s plenty of room.”

Kemp guided us carefully between the reefs, which
rose on both sides, close to the surface. Once inside, after
carefully reconnoitering our position, we dropped anchor
in almost the exact center of the haven. It was just noon.

Glenn, in the meantime, had been up the mast with
Korganoff's sketch, checking our position. He came back
with the incredible news that we had stumbled upon the
very spot which was our goal. From the air photograph,
Phips’s ancient chart and Korganoff’s drawing, the men
judged the boat’s approximate position in relation to the
reefs and discussed which was the most logical area to
search.

We had a quick lunch and then launched Wee Diver.
We were all anticipating our first glimpse of the bottom on
these famous banks. I'm sure I thought that it would be
only a matter of moments before the searchers would sig-
nal back to Sea Diver that they had discovered wreckage
on the bottom. :

It was decided that Barney and Jane should start out
first, with Kemp at the outboard. After they had given the
reefs a quick once-over, Kemp was to return for Ed and
me. I watched them depart in mounting excitement. They
headed for the reefs to the west of the dry rock, where
Korganoff had indicated the wreck might lie, and Wee
Diver started patiently circling them, Kemp running the
motor, Jane and Barmey lying prone in the bottom of the
boat as they gazed through the glass bottom. I stood on
the pulpit watching their every move.

Soon I saw Barney go overboard, then Jane. While
Kemp continued to police the reefs, watching from the
surface as he went, Barney and Jane started off in differ-

The Silver Shoals 255

ent directions on exploring trips of their own. They were
swimming farther and farther away from Wee Diver, and
Kemp, in the boat, was working farther away from them
all the time.

I was truly frightened. Didn't they know that these
were the Silver shoals? How dared they swim so far away
from the boat and from each other? These waters were
certain to be full of dangerous sharks and barracuda! Here
on these sixteen hundred square miles of banks and rocks
was a perfect haven for the fish life of the entire Atlantic!

I stormed inwardly at Barney and Jane. Why didn't
they stay together? Why hadn't they told Kemp to keep
near them? J railed at Kemp. Why didn’t he keep his boat
within calling distance?

Then Barney disappeared from my sight completely.
The last I had seen of him, he was swimming in the direc-
tion of the dry rock. By this time I had communicated my
fears to Ed and Glenn. We got out the glasses and took
turns searching the waters for Barney. At last Glenn
picked out his bobbing head a quarter mile from Wee
Diver. He was swimming slowly in the direction of the
boat. Jane was now near enough to Wee Diver to signal
Kemp. After he had picked her up, they headed in
Barney’s direction and he, too, climbed into the boat.

They returned nonchalantly to Sea Diver, completely
unaware of the fright they had given me. They were
enthusiastic over the beauty of the bottom and urged Ed
and me to hurry on to see it. They had not spotted any-
thing of importance during their quick survey. They
hadn’t even seen any big fish, so all my fears had been
needless, and in any case they were soon forgotten in my
eagerness to get started. I could hardly wait for Kemp to
refuel the outboard, but at last we were on our way.

I was overwhelmed at what I saw through the glass
bottom of the boat—great towering coral cliffs, honey-

256 Sea Diver

combed with caves, rising from a white-sand floor, topped
by pinnacles bizarrely fashioned like something from the
Arabian nights. There were vast outcroppings of every
kind of coral—tangled jungles of branch coral like berry
bushes in a pasture, solid beds of lettuce coral, waving
Gorgonia and sea fans, and topping all, the lovely yellow- _
brown stag coral, forming shady parasols for the teeming,
colorful small fish beneath it. Not only were the reefs a
tumbled mass of coral, but the whole ocean floor was scat-
tered with these formations, some close to the bottom but
many towering thirty and forty feet.

It was in bottom such as this that we discovered that
Sea Diver’s anchor and chain had become ensnared, as we
cruised over them on our return, after a solid hour of un-
successful search. No amount of pulling or hauling would
ever free them. Ed, the only deep-water diver in the party,
would have to go down, unwind the chain from the coral
with which it was entangled and clear the anchor.

But because it was already late in the day and the
weather seemed good, he decided we should stay in the
little reef harbor overnight. It would take some time for
us to find a good anchorage on the banks outside, and the
sun was already getting low. (

_ That evening Kemp prepared a delicious fish chowder
for our supper from a kingfish and half a tuna he had
caught on his trolling line in the morning as we crossed
the banks. Half a tuna because, before he discovered that
he had a fish on his line, the rear half of the tuna had
been gobbled by a passing barracuda.

While the chowder was cooking and we were sitting
around the table in the deck cabin enjoying a drink, we
heard a shout from Vital on the aft deck. He was dancing
up and down in his excitement as he hauled with all his
strength on the heavy fishing line he had just put over-
board, baited with the entrails from Kemp's fish. We ar-

The Silver Shoals 257

rived in time to see him pull alongside a shark about eight
feet long.

This was an occasion to be celebrated, for ever since
Vital had first joined us in Marathon five years before, he
had been angling for a shark. Night after night he had
made his preparations, fastening a large hook to a length
of strong chain and then to a heavy line which he strung
out behind the boat, well baited with whatever choice bit
he thought might attract a shark. Sometimes the bait was
gone in the morning. Twice the hook and chain had both
disappeared, leaving the frayed end of the heavy line. But
never had he pulled in his line with a shark on the other
end. This time, when he finally had the shark safely on the
deck, we had a drink of Barbincourt with him in cele-
bration.

Early the next morning Vital caught a nearly fifty-
pound barracuda on his line. We began to think that we
were indeed in the center of an area of big fish, even
though we had not seen any in our searching the previous
afternoon.

I could feel the goose pimples rise as I watched Vital
pull the creature over the side and still its powerful thrash-
ing with a few blows from an iron bar, and I glanced aloft
to the top of the deckhouse, where the shark’s head was
impaled with its wide-open mouth and sharp, gleaming
teeth. Vital was preserving it as a souvenir to take back
to his home town of Maniwaki, Quebec. I could see him
upon his return, displaying it with a carefully cultivated
unconcern to his woodsmen friends, who thought a big
fish was an eighteen-pound lake trout or pike.

We hadn't spent a very comfortable night there in
that harbor surrounded by reefs. The mental hazard was
probably the worst, for we realized that it was a dangerous
place to be caught in any kind of storm. We also knew that

258 Sea Diver

once darkness had set in, it would be impossible to leave
our anchorage until morning no matter what might occur,
for we would never be able to find our way out of that
maze of reefs in the night. In any case we were bound to
the bottom as long as our anchor and chain remained en-
tangled in the coral, unless in desperation we sawed
through the heavy links of the anchor chain and left it, as
had many sailing ships in the past when faced with disas-
ter.

Ed and I sat on the rail of the aft deck that night
after everyone had gone to bed, gazing at the white
circlet of breakers that surrounded us. To our starboard
were the broad, flat reefs, almost touching the suface at
low tide, near which we thought the Nuestra Senora had
gone down. We speculated. How could a ship of its size,
carrying over five hundred people and a solid cargo of gold
and silver, have disappeared so completely? There just
had to be some evidence beneath these waters that she
had been there, even though all visible signs had been
removed three centuries before. Surely we would be able
to find some traces, for even if the remains were com-
pletely encased in coral, we had our metal detectors and
the magnetometer to seek them out.

. It was a beautiful spring night. The water inside the
reefs was almost still. The soft air was like a caress, and
a new moon shone softly on the waves outside the reefs,
which broke gently along the edges of the coral with
scarcely a sound.

What must it have been like on that night so long
ago? I grieved for those poor souls who, having survived a
hurricane and nearly two months at sea on a mangled and
badly leaking ship, had suddenly found themselves ship-
wrecked on these very reefs which surrounded us. I could
picture their panic as the galleon broke loose from its
moorings and struck upon these rocks, gouging great holes

The Silver Shoals 259

in its hull, and then slowly settled toward the bottom as
its frightened passengers crowded to the upper decks.

There must have been an insane dash for the few
small boats which had already been launched. There was
violence, no doubt, as passengers and crew fought to
secure places in them.

Meanwhile, the admiral, knowing he had failed in his
last efforts to save his ship, must have puzzled how to pre-
serve what he could of the treasure in his charge.

In the end, when the ship finally foundered, its prow
sinking to the sandy bottom eight fathoms below, carrying
with it many of the doomed passengers as well as a large
share of the gold and silver stored in its hold, its stern
wedged between two of the flat reefs, assuming a crazy
angle against the sky, it was said the admiral had given
orders for some of the most valuable chests and plate,
which had been stored in his own quarters, to be placed
on the flat surfaces of the nearby reefs, in hopes that they
could be salvaged later.

As daylight appeared, some of the survivors set about
fashioning rafts and floats from what materials they could
salvage. Standing up to their waists, even to their necks,
in water, they labored, for there was little room left on the
slanting decks, littered with wreckage where the poop
deck protruded from the surface.

What a holocaust! One by one the boats and rafts had
taken off, the lucky ones aboard beating off the clutching
hands of those in the water who had no other means of
rescue. They headed south, most of these makeshift rafts,
so heavily laden it was doubtful if any of them could sur-
vive in the open sea. No one knew exactly where the
Nuestra Sefiora had gone aground. The pilots insisted
they were on the reefs of Anegada, between Puerto Rico
and Hispaniola, but the admiral declared they were still

260 Sea Diver

north of Hispaniola, on the Ambrosian banks. The admiral
was, of course, correct.

Foolishly, many of the survivors attempted to carry
their valuables with them. Some of the rafts carried bars
of gold and silver instead of food and water. A few of the
makeshift craft eventually landed at various spots on the
north coast of Hispaniola. A later reckoning showed that,
of the 514 aboard, only 190 lived to tell the tale. The
others either went to their death in these very waters or
were lost on the open sea as they tried to make their es-
cape.

When Ed and I finally went below, haunted with
thoughts of that long-ago tragedy, the night was peaceful
enough. But before morning, the wind came up. The
breakers’ gentle song on the reefs around us changed to a
threatening roar, and to our uneasy ears it sounded as if
Sea Diver were only a few feet from them. None of the
crew had slept very much, we learned later. Toward morn-
ing a thunderstorm added to our mental tortures. With
the change of wind that accompanied the storm, Sea Diver
swung around on her anchor, her chain jerking and tug-
ging at the coral heads which held her against her will.

. We resolved never to stay overnight in that
hemmed-in prison again. We would find ourselves a good
anchorage outside upon the banks that very afternoon, we
hoped in the vicinity of that half moon where Captain
Phips had found secure anchorage nearly three hundred
years before. Then, Ed said, we would also fix ourselves
a permanent daytime mooring in the reef harbor, where
we planned to search, so that we would have a quick
means of picking up and freeing our anchor each day, re-
tiring to the relative safety of the open banks for the night.

So that morning, while Jane and Barney searched the

The Silver Shoals 261

reefs with Wee Diver, the remainder of those aboard
helped Ed to free the tangled anchor chain from the bot-
tom coral and to place a permanent mooring in almost
the same spot. Until then none of us had realized that our
anchor lay in twelve fathoms of water.

I floated on the surface as I watched Ed disappear
down the anchor chain, hand over hand. On deck Vital
and Glenn stood ready to tend the air hose and to winch
in the anchor chain when it should be freed. I was to keep
a lookout from the surface for Ed’s signals and then relay
them to the men on deck. Everything went like clockwork.

As Ed loosened the chain from the coral pinnacles
with a crowbar, sometimes breaking off great arms in the
process, the slack was winched in. Ed looked like a pixie
in the clear, deep water below. His mission accomplished,
he ascended, hanging on to the anchor chain, his feet rest-
ing on the stock while the winch slowly reeled in the
anchor.

One more job remained to be done, that of placing a
permanent mooring cable on the bottom. After looking
over the situation, Ed chose, as a resting place for the
anchor, the top of a large coral head, which was about
twenty feet nearer the surface than the sea bottom itself.
By placing the anchor thus, the chain would not become
entangled so easily with the bottom coral as the boat
shifted position in wind and tide.

We took our stations again. An anchor was lowered
on a fresh length of chain while Ed swam downward to
sink it securely in the top of the coral head. When he
returned, he said he was sure nothing would ever budge
it from above; he really wondered whether he would be
able to dive it out again when the time came.

Now, we thought, very pleased with ourselves, we
were prepared for any emergency that might come while
we were within the reef harbor!

262 Sea Diver

All the time I was watching Ed from the surface of
the water, I was conscious of a large barracuda hanging
around. It never came very close, but hovered nearby,
watching every move we made. I wondered if it might
be the mate of the one Vital had caught from the deck
earlier that morning. If so, was it out to avenge its mate’s
untimely death? Needless to say, I was not very comfort-
able while it was there.

We spent the rest of the morning launching Reef
Diver, for on the Silver shoals, if anywhere, we would
require the services of that little shallow-draft, rudderless,
wheel-less craft in order to use our compression-fed diving
equipment close to the reefs, as well as to scout the depths
through its glass bottom.

From time to time we caught glimpses of Jane and
Barney as they cruised over the coral with Wee Diver.
There were long intervals when the little boat was an-
chored and they were over the side, making a closer inves-
tigation of things that had caught their interest through
the glass bottom. I had ceased to worry over them, for
now that I had been in the water myself and had seen the
reefs through the bottom of the boat, I had lost most of my
concern in regard to the big fish. I now knew for a cer-
tainty that there were sharks and barracuda around us,
but I also knew that they were no more prevalent than
off Cap Haitien or in the Bahamas, where we had dived
so often before.

I was beginning to find for myself what Ed and the
Criles had discovered long before, that imagination plays
a powerful part in creating a climate of fear, but that
when one is concerned with the job in hand or full of in-
terest and enthusiasm for one’s surroundings, fear soon
takes a back seat.

Many times when I have been alone on the bottom, I
have been assailed with a creepy feeling that behind my

The Silver Shoals 2963

back or just out of range of the narrow field of vision
within my mask lurks some dreadful creature. I have
swung around to find nothing in sight more frightening
than a pair of beautiful blue-and-gold angelfish or a school
of curious jacks. Or perhaps nothing. At times, even then,
the feeling has persisted, not fading into the background
until my interest has been caught by the ever-engrossing
and exciting environment of the underwater. Now it has
become almost automatic, if such a feeling nudges me, to
take a quick look around, brush off my forebodings, and
return to what is occupying me. There is too much to see
and do in this underwater world to waste time worrying —
over things that might happen but seldom do.

When Jane and Barney returned to Sea Diver for
lunch, they brought with them two round ballast stones
they had dived up from the outside of the reef which lay
between the one marked by the dry rock and the one
which we had selected for special searching because of
Korganoff’s chart. Here was concrete evidence of the pres-
ence of a wrecked ship.

We could hardly wait to explore the location further,
but by the time we had eaten, the wind had come up and
it was too rough on the outside of the reefs for us to ven-
ture there. Instead we spent the afternoon in following
the inside edges of the reefs to the north of us with both
the smaller boats.

We returned to Sea Diver about the middle of the
afternoon and, with Reef Diver in tow, started out toward
the banks to seek a better anchorage for the night. There
was quite a sea running and we did not look forward to
spending the night tossing and rolling, as we were almost
certain would be the case. But there, at least, we would
have sea room in case of storm. We also looked forward to
finding some clean bottom where we could drop our hook
without getting it fouled in coral.

Our hopes were soon dashed. What with the poorer

264 Sea Diver

visibility of late afternoon and the breaking seas, it was
difficult even to spot the coral heads which were scat-
tered here and there around us. Ed was finally forced to
pick the most open spot in sight for an anchorage, and we
dropped our hook, knowing full well we would have a
struggle to recover it in the morning. Tomorrow, he said,
we would leave the reef harbor still earlier in the after-
noon and make a point of seeking a permanent mooring
for our nights on the bank.

As I went aft that night on my way to bed, I was
suddenly overwhelmed by the loneliness of our position.
The cold crescent of the new moon just above the western
horizon and a thick scattering of tropical stars barely
lighted the crests of the rolling seas and the white froth
of the reefs, which lay less than a half mile to our stern.
The prevailing wind from the southeast blew strongly
down Sea Diver's deck and whipped my hair across my
face.

I was conscious as never before of the vast expanse
of water surrounding us, a flood of water which somehow
served to touch off in me a feeling of kinship with that
wild and terrible period in the earth’s history when all
life lay deep in primordial seas. I shivered, although the
wind that assailed me contained only an enveloping
warmth. Never, even during those winter nights of cold
and violence when Ed and I had braved the Gulf Stream
gales alone in our little yawl, had I sensed as now that
vast loneliness which the sea sometimes engenders.

Here we were in the heart of the Silver banks, com-
pletely on our own. There were no passing ships, for no
captain would knowingly risk his vessel in these dangerous
waters. The curling white foam on the north horizon off
our stern carried a menacing threat, and in the dark waters
around us coral heads hid their tops just beneath the sur-
face.

We must be very sure that in spite of wind or storm

The Silver Shoals 265

our anchor and chain did not fail, or we would find our-
selves dashed against these same reefs which had claimed
the Nuestra Sefiora so many centuries before.

The night passed quietly enough. In fact the wind
went down toward morning, but we found ourselves hard
put to it to stay in our bunks as Sea Diver rolled steeply
from side to side in a cross tide. We were up early. After
breakfast Ed and Kemp embarked in Wee Diver to assess
the problem of raising the anchor.

They found it caught in a coral head on the bottom
as they had feared, the chain twisted and turned around
nearby heads. This time it was in fourteen fathoms of
water, and again it was necessary for Ed to dive to this
depth to free it. But now it was much more difficult, for
the rough open sea caused Sea Diver to jerk and pull on
the chain, and he had to time his movements while loosen-
ing it to the brief intervals when there was a little slack.
He was exhausted from the struggle when he came back
on board.

We were rewarded for the efforts of the previous day,
however, when we approached the reef harbor, where a
yellow-flag buoy floated, marking the permanent mooring
we had laid. We found our way in through the surround-
ing reefs and heads, coasted up to the buoy, which Kemp
caught with the boat hook, and secured Sea Diver quickly
and safely.

It was late in the morning when we had finished eat-
ing breakfast and completed the chores on board. By the
time Reef Diver was loaded with the necessary diving
equipment and the two small boats were finally on their
way to the reefs, the wind had come up again. Although
it was fairly quiet within the reef harbor, the seas outside
were kicking up quite a fuss.

We had hoped to anchor over the spot where Barney
and Jane had picked up the two ballast stones, but the

266 Sea Diver

buoy they had placed to mark the spot was tossing about
in the breakers on the outer side of the reef, and it ap-
peared extremely hazardous to take Reef Diver there in
the breaking seas.

Instead, we anchored the two boats as close as pos-
sible to the spot, but on the inside of the reef. Barney
thought that by wearing a mask with the air hose connect-
ing him to the compressor on Reef Diver, he might be able
to reach this location with the metal detector to see if he
could pick up any signs of wreckage, for once beneath
the surface he would be relatively free of turbulence.

He started out across the reef, Jane following him on
the surface, guarding his air hose to keep it from getting
entangled in the bladelike millepores coral which came
almost to the top in many places. This broad, flat reef
could very well be the one on which the survivors of the
galleon’s shipwreck had placed the chests of valuables for
the admiral; the very one to which they had clung as
they fabricated the crude rafts which were to carry some
of them to safety.

Disappointment came when Barney and the metal
detector were brought up short just a few feet from the goal.
He had come to the end of his air hose. This is one of the
handicaps of using a compressor and connecting line.
However, he had chosen it in this instance in preference to
the clumsy air tanks of the self-contained equipment be-
cause he could maneuver the metal detector and himself
more easily around the uneven coral formations close to
the surface.

The wind continued to blow harder, and it now be-
came impossible to accomplish anything around the reefs.
We went back to Sea Diver and, after a late lunch, decided
that we would try to locate the half moon where Captain
Phips had mentioned anchoring his ship, the James and
Mary. If we could find it, it might provide the perfect

The Silver Shoals 267

anchorage for Sea Diver. This was not the time to do so,
however, for once outside the shelter of the reef harbor
we found the water so churned up that it was impossible
to make out either the pattern of the reefs or the look of
the bottom.

As we cruised along, dodging the numerous rocky
heads, Ed pondered the necessity of dropping the main
anchor and chain with every prospect of having to dive
them up again the next morning. It was then Kemp sug-
gested we pick one of the coral heads near the surface of
the water, but deep enough for Sea Diver's bottom to clear
it safely, and plant our anchor in its top, much as we had
done in the reef harbor. By attaching one end of a smaller
chain to the anchor and the other end to a buoy at the sur-
face, where it could be joined to Sea Diver with a hawser,
we would have a permanent mooring.

So, with Kemp in the pulpit to pick out a likely
coral head, Ed, at the wheel, guided Sea Diver in search
of a promising place. Kemp finally spotted one with the
proper qualifications and we steered toward it. Now it
became a game of skill for Ed to bring the bow of Sea
Diver into the right position and to hold it there while
Kemp and Glenn, on the bow, maneuvered to place the
anchor on top of the coral head, ten feet below. Jane
and I wrestled with pike poles to fend Reef Diver off
the stern, where it was being towed, as Sea Diver was
shifted from forward to reverse and back again.

After three tries the job was done. Barney dived
overboard and returned to report that the anchor was
firmly set, deep in the heart of the head. We were secure
—that is, if the sixty-foot length of chain could be trusted
to hold. I felt very uneasy about that chain, for the reefs
were only a quarter of a mile astern.

Again Sea Diver rolled and tossed all night long, as
the wind whistled a tune through the radar antennae. At

268 Sea Diver

dinner there was talk of setting an anchor watch, but
nothing was done about it. We all went to bed vaguely
worried.

Barney and Jane, in the forward cabin, found it im-
possible to sleep because of the din made by the rattle of
the rudder chains and the jerking of the boat against
the anchor line. They finally sought refuge on the wide
seat of the afterdeck, where they slept until dawn brought
the usual thunderstorm, which drove them below decks
once more. There was a splendid display of pyrotechnics
from the blackened sky. The galelike winds drove the rain
in sheets across the decks, and Sea Diver reeled drunkenly
in the disturbed seas. Then, suddenly, it was over; the
wind went down and the sea immediately calmed.

Two hours later, when we effortlessly released our
line from the buoy and set out for the reef harbor, where
we tied up, equally without effort, to the buoy we had
left there, we congratulated ourselves that we had at last
solved our anchorage problems.

The next day was most satisfying. That morning I
lay face down on one of the bunks in Reef Diver, Glenn
on the other, gazing through the glass bottom at the reefs
below as we searched for further evidence of the ship
whose ballast we had found. Kemp, with his keen Ba-
hamian eyes, perched on top of the cabin, scanning
through the water to the bottom, while Ed expertly guided
the boat around the edges and then across the surface of
the reefs wherever the water was sufficiently deep, for
today there was not a ripple. The sea was heavenly calm.

Suddenly I glimpsed an anchor. But we were past it
before I could shout, “Stop, stop!” Glenn, too, had briefly
seen its ring from his side of the boat. Ed threw Reef
Diver into reverse, and we were over it.

It lay on a flat shelf of the reef about thirty feet

The Silver Shoals 269

below us, coral-encrusted, perfect, truly a thrilling find.
We threw our own anchor over the side and Reef Diver
hung poised above it. Ed put on his Scott mask and tank
and went overboard to investigate. He measured the an-
chor—first its length, arms outstretched, one full reach
and half again, nine feet long; then the distance from
one fluke to the other, another full reach, six feet from
point to point. It had cloverleaf-shaped flukes, sharply
pointed arms and a large ring, no stock. It was a very
old one, probably seventeenth century. It might well have
come from the Nuestra Sefiora, or perhaps from one of
Phips’s salvage ships.

We searched the whole area, surface swimming,
crossing the deep valley between this reef and the one
containing the ballast, while Ed swam the depths below
us. We skirted the outside of the ballast reef, too, carefully
observing everything below.

Beneath the glassy, calm, blue-green water spread
fantastic formations of wild and beautiful coral, while
overhead a serene, cloudless sky lulled us into a feeling
of complete security. Brilliant blue and neonlike, mullti-
colored parrot fish swam in schools or darted in and out
of the coral caves, while seventy feet below, Ed, in his
Scott, searched the lower depths for signs of shipwreck,
a small figure in the vast blue.

Finding no other indications of a sunken ship, we
placed a buoy to mark the anchor find and went back to
Sea Diver for lunch, puzzled, but also elated, for we now
had two indications of the presence of a wreck some-
where in the vicinity. We decided to return and search
the inside of the same reef that afternoon.

Once more we searched by boat. This time Kemp
spotted more of the small round ballast stones on the in-
side of the reef, just in line with the spot where Barney
and Jane had found the first two pieces. There were

270 Sea Diver

several “pebbles” in sight, with indications that more
might be buried under the coral. We all went overboard
once more, and spread out to cover as much bottom as
possible while gazing down from the surface. We found
more ballast.

I also spotted a peculiar-shaped object, flat and ob-
long, with two curves along one edge like bites. When
Barney attempted to dive it up, it broke apart where it
was cemented to the rock, and he came up with only a
section, about eight inches long and five wide. It was
blackened metal, heavily corroded. He placed it in Wee
Diver and went back to his search.

In the meantime Ed had set out to investigate an un-
usual coral formation which he had observed on the
sandy floor just inside the reef. It had the appearance
of part of a ship, with curving ribs sticking upright from
it toward the surface. We thought this might possibly
be what Korganoff had considered as the coral-encrusted
part of the galleon which Captain Phips had failed to
penetrate in his search for the remainder of the treasure.

I watched Ed from the surface as he swam around the
coral structure, which certainly bore a haunting re-
semblance to part of the hull of an old ship. He scanned
it closely, then approached one of the protruding ribs and
gave it a sharp snap. As it broke, a fine powder of white
coral dissipated in the water around. Even from my dis-
tance I could see that the pure white of the inside of the
arm extended clear through. There was no decayed wood
here. He repeated the experiment on other extensions
with similar results.

As I swam back to the reef where the rest of the party
was searching, I wondered how many years it had taken
this coral to develop and reach the surface. Would it be
possible in, say, forty years, for an object as large as a
whole section of a wrecked ship to become so encrusted

The Silver Shoals 271

that Captain Phips’s divers would be unable to penetrate
it? I doubted it. In nearly five hundred years the anchor of
Columbus’s time had been covered with only an inch and
a quarter of calcerous growth. Under the most salutary
conditions it was doubtful if any more coral than that
could have been produced from the time the galleon
sank until Phips attempted to reclaim its cargo within the
same century.

There was a striking irregularity in this reef directly
beneath me. The more or less solid coral rock which
formed the body of the reef was transfigured by burgeon-
ing coral growths of many types, these in turn masquer-
ading behind creeping sponge formations in wonderful
reds and yellows, and lush Gorgonias and sea fans. The
whole colorful pattern stood forth against a background
of deep, rich yellow-brown, the underwater look of the
minute coral animals which, crowding the surface of the
dead rock, reach hungry mouths into the waters around
them.

In my mind I tried to compare these Silver shoal reefs
with those I had become familiar with along the Florida
keys and in sections of the Bahama islands. I concluded
that in these crystal-clear ocean waters, a more prolific
growth had produced a junglelike entanglement of corals
of much greater size, as each separate colony of polyps
struggled toward the sunlit surface waters.

The result was these steep, distorted, grotesquely
beautiful rock castles which thrust almost vertically up-
ward from the ocean floor, creating there on the white
sand bottom such topheavy pinnacles it was hard to be-
lieve the narrow bases could support the riotous top struc-
tures.

It is the nature of coral to grow upon itself, the live
polyps fastening themselves to the deserted shells of

Diz Sea Diver

their dead ancestors, gradually building layer upon layer
as they labor to create that one particular design to which
a Greater Being has assigned them. There has always been
great speculation as to how fast coral grows. No one
knows exactly, for the rate of growth varies greatly ac-
cording to location, temperature, the clarity and move-
ment of the water, and the type of coral. It is believed
that the coral of the Great Barrier reefs formed at a rate
of three feet per thousand years.

It seemed, therefore, that before a sufficient coating
of calcerous growth could form on any part of the wooden
ship which we were seeking, unless that part were solid
metal, the structure necessarily would have broken up. If
what remained of the wreckage were not washed away by
the action of the seas, and if it lay upon or very near the
reefs, it no doubt could have been gradually enveloped
by these persistently building corals. On the other hand,
if it had become buried in the sand and thus protected
from coral or worms, there was every possibility that it
might survive the centuries. However, there seemed little
likelihood of this, for the coral was too closely spaced upon
the bottom, and the sand was too thin to cover much of
anything. i

_ I wondered if perhaps broken sections of the galleon
lay imprisoned even now in the coral rock beneath me.
For, as the staghorns and more solid types of brain corals
had attained their growth in centuries past, heavy storms
or earthquakes would have caused them to break from
their foundations and collapse into the reef to add their
bulk, thus speeding up the process of concealment.

Even though such a thing might have happened, I
doubted that in the number of years which elapsed be-
tween the sinking and Phips’s discovery of the wreck,
any large section of the ship could have become com-

The Silver Shoals 973

pletely enveloped and inaccessible. Surely, if this part
of the galleon had been there, Phips’s divers would have
found a way to break into it.

After Ed returned to the anchored boats on the reef,
he and Barney decided to take the metal detector below
and go over the spot where the scattered ballast stone had
been found. The instrument picked up indications of metal
in several places, but particularly around one large yellow
brain-coral formation. In spite of its size, the men reasoned
that the huge coral boulder must have grown over what-
ever metal lay beneath it, and that they would have
to dynamite it to discover what it concealed.

Ed made a quick trip to Sea Diver with the little
boat and returned with the necessary explosives. He
wrapped the wire expertly around a stick of dynamite and
the detonator and was soon overboard with Barney to
plant it beneath the coral. As soon as they had surfaced
and climbed aboard Reef Diver, we moved the boat to a
safe distance. Ed took the cells from a flashlight and
touched the two ends of wire which led beneath the water
to the two terminals of the batteries. There was a sharp,
muffled sound, and a vibration which jolted the bottom of
the boat. Seconds later the calm surface water boiled up
and outward in ever-widening circles in the vicinity of the
explosion. Soon after, the coral-roiled water was dotted
with the bodies of small, dark-blue parrot fish, edged with
a brighter blue, for the blast had caught a school as it
was passing by.

A half hour later, when the underwater dust cloud
had settled, Barney went overboard to reconnoiter. He
came back to report that the explosion had shattered coral
for fifteen feet around. He had been unable to locate the
spot where the large brain coral had stood. He was a lit-
tle discouraged, for he said the bottom was now covered

274 Sea Diver

with a thick coating of broken coral, and they would have
to use the metal detector all over again to ascertain where
to dig for the objects which it had previously indicated.
He and Ed donned the air equipment and went back to
work.

They emerged some time later with some broken
hunks of coral which showed indications of containing
metal, a badly deteriorated section of a gun barrel, and
some small pieces of metal which looked as if they might
be the oxidized remains of silver coins.

Now we knew that we were indeed on the site of a
wreck! Whether it was the remains of the Spanish galleon
or some other unfortunate ship would remain to be seen.
Although none of us came right out and said so, I am sure
we all felt that now, after nearly three hundred years, we
were on the brink of unraveling the long-lost secret of the
Silver shoals.

That evening we examined the objects which Barney
and Ed had retrieved from the sea. We beat the large
chunks of coral apart with an iron mallet, only to find
that the metal within was so badly corroded that there
was nothing left but a black, crumbling powder. The
wreck must be very old indeed. The gun barrel was so
deteriorated it was impossible to identify it.

Next Barney picked up the section from the odd-
shaped piece which [ had pointed out to him that after-
noon. It responded to the metal detector, which indicates
either iron or silver, but would not respond to a magnet,
which affects only iron. My heart leaped! Could this be a
very-much-corroded piece of silver? Because of the size
and shape of the original piece, I could only guess that
it might have been part of the silver stand of some orna-
mental altarpiece which had gone down with the Spanish
galleon. The others were excited, too.

There was one more test, which would tell the tale.

The Silver Shoals 275

By immersing a bit of the metal in acetic acid, we would
be able to determine whether this was silver or merely a
piece of iron so badly decomposed that it no longer re-
sponded to the pull of the magnetic field.

Slowly and ceremoniously Ed chiseled off a bit of
the metal and dropped it into a small cup of the acid. It
boiled madly and the metal disappeared. My dreams of
silver altarpieces also vanished. It was iron.

When Ed repeated this test on the small coinlike ob-
jects that had been uncovered by the dynamiting, there
was no reaction. These were indeed what was left of
badly disintegrated silver coins. My disappointment fled,
and I was hopeful once more. Where there were a few
coins, there must be others. Perhaps we would be lucky
enough to find some in good enough condition to dis-
tinguish their origin. These bits of metal could have
dribbled from the corroded chests of the Spanish galleon
as Phips’s divers labored to raise them.

I was reminded of a very graphic account of the
salvaging of the treasure, written by John Taylor, a cap-
tain’s clerk on H.M.S. Faulcon, the guard ship which had
been sent from Jamaica in 1688 to assist Phips on his third
expedition.

... At first when Sir William Phips discovered the
wreck, the guns and pigs of silver and wrought plate
lay uppermost, so that in his first voyage he took up
13 copper guns and one half of his plate was pigs
of metal, dishes and other wrought silver which his
divers went down and fastened ropes to it, and so
they hoisted it in with their tackles. And so the dol-
lars they hoisted in by whole chests of 2000 dollars
together, for although the chests were rotted off and
consumed, yet the dollars, with rust, were so grown
together that they hung together as one lump—al-
though the middlemost of the chest was bright and

276 Sea Diver

sound—and not many of them was much wasted by
the water.

Taylor also wrote that the sloops which were at work
on the wreck when Phips and Narborough arrived had
brought Indian divers “from Florida, New England In-
dians, Musceto Indians and Negro divers, many of which
would stay four minutes under water.” In all, he esti-
mated, about three hundred Indians dove on the wreck,
and of that number only five lost their lives.

He described the diving tubs which the divers had
used to obtain air without coming to the surface each
time. They were

. made in the form of a bell about ten feet di-
ameter at the open end and three feet at the closed
end and six feet high. These tubs they sank with
weights to the bottom, and then kept it about three
feet from the bottom by ropes, so that the divers,
when they wanted air and breath, would go under
the diving tub and so refresh themselves, and out to
work again.

By this invention, the divers could stay under
water at least half an hour and work in the removing
of timbers and rocks; and so when they wanted
breath retreat into the diving tub, which would yield
them relief until the pent up air in the tub by their
breath, was become warm, and then they could
stay under water no longer, but they dived up and
the tub was hauled up to refresh it.

Taylor completed his account with this story.

Of such excellent use were these tubs that I
have seen an Indian dive down with a bottle of
brandy and so he that was underwater could, within
the tub, take a dram, and they talk together at
pleasure; and this I have seen frequently done on
the wreck.

The Silver Shoals 277

His description of the condition of the wreck after
only two score years beneath the sea interested us greatly
by reason of its contrast to wrecks which Ed and I had
examined after they had been centuries underwater. Tay-
lor said that on Phips’s third expedition, when the treasure
was not so plentiful or so easy to come by:

. with pickaxes, the divers tore up the timbers
and coral rocks and cleared all live timbers and
ballast from the stern to the step of the mainmast; but
the stern part of the ship was so overgrown with coral
rocks that they could find no inventions to clear it, but
by blowing it up, which here they wanted engines to
perform. But they dived into it under the rocks as
into the caves, but by reason of the darkness and the
rock they there got but little.

Now all those rocks and timbers which they
cleared were hoisted up and carried on board Sir
John, where, with iron mauls they beat the coral
rocks to pieces, and within the body of those grow-
ing stones found many thousand dollars. I saw a
coral rock hoisted up about one ton, about which
could be seen nothing like plate, but, being broken
to pieces, there was found in it 7,600 dollars, and
these dollars were very bright and not damnified
at all by the water. I have seen several china’ choco-
late cups taken up on this wreck unbroken and not
damnified by the water, and many of the ribs and
timbers of the ship that were taken up were very
strong and sound, and the very hay or grass which
was put between the silver dishes I have seen not
rotten. The plate indeed looked very black by reason
of the indigo and other colors which were in this
galleon when lost.

Solid timbers and shining silver and whole pieces of
china and glassware were almost nonexistent on any of the
wrecks we had explored. Of course we were aware that

278 Sea Diver

Taylor had viewed these objects within a half century of
the disaster which overtook the galleon, whereas our pre-
vious explorations had been confined to ships which had
been underwater from one to four centuries.

Here in Taylor's account we were provided with first-
hand information as to the action of these waters in the
vicinity of the Silver banks on foreign substances, and
the rate of coral growth to be expected over a fairly exact
period of time. The missing part of the puzzle was the ex-
act number of years which elapsed between the time of
the galleon’s sinking and its salvaging by Phips. It might
be forty-three years, as Taylor claimed, or a matter of
twenty-eight years, if Korganoff was right in his research.

In either case, if coral could succeed in covering
wreckage to such an extent in that very limited time, was
it not possible that today, after several centuries of coral
growth, the wreckage would be completely hidden from
human eyes?

Mindful as we were of the different pressures at vari-
ous levels below the surface and their effect on the diver,
according to the depth of his dive and the length of time
he spends below, John Taylor's comment on how Phips’s
Indian divers met the situation fascinated us. He wrote:

And I observed that the Indian divers, when
they rise up out of the water, as soon as they put
their heads above the same, would in an instant duck
their head under water and there keep it about a
quarter of a minute, and then rise up and recover
the boat; for they said if they should at first receive
too much of the land air it would destroy them, but
by the concoction of the first received air they got
strength to enable them to receive the benefits of the
air fully like others which dived not.

Taylor’s observation that after “they rise up out of the
water,” they “in an instant duck their head under water

The Silver Shoals 279

and there keep it about a quarter of a minute,” was prob-
ably one of the first records of an attempt to find a method
to compensate for sudden changes of pressure on the hu-
man body.

A night of wind and storm followed our discovery of
the tantalizing bits of ship’s wreckage. Sea Diver rolled
and bucked at her mooring, threatening to wrench her-
self free from the coral-head anchorage on the banks. Her
unrest finally led Ed to set a watch for the remainder
of the night. Those of us who stayed in bed struggled to
keep from being tossed out and slept but fitfully. When ~
morning finally came, the seas were still rolling in great
waves, while the wind blew out of the northeast at twenty-
five knots. We decided it would be useless to try to pre-
pare breakfast, to say nothing of attempting to eat it, un-
til we had moved into the shelter of the reef harbor.

While we were freeing the heavy hawser which held
Sea Diver to the mooring buoy, there was a sudden ex-
clamation from Glenn. He held up a section of the moor-
ing line. Two badly frayed places within a few feet of
each other revealed near tragedy. Upon closer inspection
we found that in both spots only one strand still held. Al-
though the length of chain had protected our anchor
line from the coral, the constant sharp tugs of the heavy
boat in the rolling seas had almost severed the thick rope
which joined the chain to Sea Diver.

As we headed toward our reef anchorage, where the
turbulent seas could be seen breaking clear over the pro-
tecting reefs, and the usual blue-green waters were trans-
formed to a steely blue-gray under the overcast skies, we
were very sober. The discovery of the damaged hawser
brought home to us anew what a close game we were
playing with the same fate that had carried the Spanish

280 Sea Diver

galleon to its death. I was much relieved when, at lunch-
time, the men decided to try a new solution to our prob-
lem. This time they planned to double-moor Sea Diver
right where she was within the reefs, so that she would
not be exposed to such seas as we had experienced the
previous night.

We were now agreed that with secure anchorage we
would be safer in the more sheltered reef harbor than on
the open banks.

By the time we had placed the second mooring in-
side the reef harbor and secured Sea Diver between the
two, the weather had cleared and the sea was flattening
out. We now had two anchors below, attached to chains
which in turn were attached to floating buoys, connected
to the bow of the ship with heavy line. If the wind blew
from one direction, Sea Diver would pull on only one
mooring, the other lying slack. If wind or tide shifted, the
other mooring would take the pull. If for any reason one
set of tackle failed, we would not be suddenly and un-
suspectingly carried upon the reefs, but would be held
by the second cable.

With our minds temporarily freed from worry, we
went back to the wreck site that afternoon. Ed and Barney
had spent the morning digging at the rubble on the bot-
tom and examining it with the metal detector.

Now, as they speculated over the advisability of fur-
ther dynamiting, Glenn, who had been searching in the
small boat with Vital, arrived to tell us he had spotted
another anchor on the ocean floor behind the “wreck” reef,
in line with our original yellow-flag buoy.

Ed swam down in the Scott to examine it. He found
a very old anchor, so deeply imbedded in coral it would
be impossible to move it intact. It measured six feet in
length, with an arm spread of three feet. While it might

The Silver Shoals 281

have come from the Spanish galleon, he thought it too
small to have been part of her equipment. More likely,
he said, it had come from a later ship which might have
been searching for the galleon. Perhaps it had come from
the wrecked ship we were investigating. This was a dis-
couraging possibility, for it would mean that the wreck we
had found was a smaller ship than the galleon.

That night was quiet and peaceful. Sea Diver rode
calmly at her two moorings. The wind did not come up,
and the sea stayed quiet. A star-sprinkled sky lighted the
nearby reefs, where just a murmur of lapping waters could
be heard. The crew of Sea Diver slept soundly and well.
We awoke to a Sunday morning so still and beautiful, to |
a sea so quiescent, so clear, that in its blue depths could
be seen the finest details of coral head and fish far below.
It was a day to enjoy, to relax all tensions. It turned into
a morning for picture-taking.

With both Reef Diver and Wee Diver anchored on
the wreck site, the air compressor operating for several
divers, and two extra Scott outfits for the rest of them, the
quiet spot became a beehive of activity. With as many as
four divers below at the same time, and the other swim-
mers assisting from the surface, cameras clicked and
buzzed. There was a constant exchange of diving and
photographic equipment. The startled fish hung around
at first and then disappeared to quiet retreats under the
coral ledges. The water in the vicinity of the wreck area
became cloudy with powdery coral from the stirred-up
debris on the bottom.

When the orgy of picture-taking was over, the men
decided to dynamite once more, close to the site of the
previous explosion, where they had picked up further in-
dications of metal in the coral. Using the metal de-
tector, they marked two locations, laced them with a
half stick of dynamite each and set them off. This time we

282 Sea Diver

did not wait for the water to clear, but went on with our
surface explorations from Reef Diver in another area.

When Ed and Barney returned that afternoon, the
water had cleared and they could look down on the de-
struction their explosion had wrought. Another large sec-
tion of the reef had been completely flattened of rampant
coral growth, leaving a large white patch on its surface.
Almost in the center of the patch they could see a deep
hole which had been opened up by the blast. They de-
scended eagerly upon it.

Ed said it looked for all the world as if they might
have blasted into the open hull of a coral-covered ship.
They poked and prodded and examined the spot, peering
down into its depths hopefully, but could discover no
signs of anything man-made. Evidently the explosion had
blown an opening into one of the concealed coral caves of
the reef.

Once more applying the metal detector to the debris,
they dug forth several pailfuls of bits and pieces from the
wreck and dumped them on the deck of Reef Diver.
We examined them eagerly. There was the lower part of a
very old, hand-blown, square, green-glass bottle, and
some small, badly corroded bits of ship’s rigging, includ-
ing a ringed spike with some tarred rope still attached.
The hunks of coral which had showed metal indications
yielded nothing worth while, only completely disinte-
grated metal dust which failed to give us a clue as to the
original shape or purpose.

After examining everything closely, Ed reached the
sad conclusion that the ship upon which we were diving
was not the Spanish galleon we were seeking. He said it
was probably the wreckage of a much smaller boat, which
might have sunk there within the same century that the
Spanish flagship vanished. There was not a single indica-
tion that a ship the size of the Nuestra Senora could have

The Silver Shoals 283

disappeared on this spot. He suggested that we give up
working this location for a while and continue our search
of the other reefs. Crestfallen, we returned to Sea diver.

After the many wakeful nights which had begun to
wear on our nerves, we were now favored with a series
of calm and beautiful days. We employed them to the
utmost in making a thorough search of all the reefs in the
area from the two smaller boats. Wherever there seemed
to be the possibility of a wreck being concealed in coral or
sand, we anchored the boats and dove overboard to in-
spect the spot at closer range. But in spite of the careful-
ness of our searches, we failed to come across any fur- —
ther indications.

One morning we rose to find the sea like glass. There
was not a cloud in the sky. Not a breath of wind stirred.
Over all hung such a stillness, it almost hurt the ears. Yet
Sea Diver rose and fell to the motion of giant swells,
which, in slow and silent rhythm, swept across the sea
without disturbing its mirrorlike surface. Around us the
reefs at low tide were plainly visible, their dry rocks
jutting above the surface. No waves broke upon them; yet,
as the swells raised and lowered the surface of the sea,
water poured in upon them equally from all directions, as
over the sides of a cup.

At breakfast we talked about leaving for Puerto
Plata the next afternoon, for our time was nearly up. Kemp
thought that the giant ocean swells which had appeared
might indicate the presence of a distant storm at sea,
which would be apt to bring high winds the next day.

We finally decided that morning to take Reef Diver
to some reefs a couple miles to the west which had not yet
been searched, and complete other explorations in Wee
Diver nearby. We would then put Reef Diver aboard, late

284 Sea Diver

in the afternoon, preparatory to leaving with Sea Diver
the following morning. If the weather held good the
next day, we would cruise the length of the reef to the
east, a distance of about fifteen miles, before starting for
Puerto Plata. It was necessary to time our going so that we
would arrive at our destination in daylight. We also had
to figure on getting away from the reefs when the sun
was still high enough for us to pick our way among the
coral heads which dotted the banks.

I went along in Reef Diver. I had been in her bow
two long hours, my eyes nearly popping out of my head
from the strain of staring through the glass bottom, when
I was conscious of unusual sounds on deck. At the same
moment, the boat forged ahead under a sudden access of
power, marked by the increased pitch of the jet, and I
noted that our course over the ocean bottom made a sharp
change.

Then Glenn poked his head through the doorway
and said, “We cant work this reef from the outside.
Those swells almost sucked us onto the rocks. We're going
around on the inside.” :

I went on deck to see what was happening and found
that the swells were indeed tremendous. As they reached
the reefs, they seemed to envelop them, rising up about
ten feet to inundate them, then suddenly subsiding. They
thus created vicious-looking boilers which completely en-
circled the rocks. I looked at the sky, which was still
unclouded, and noticed a slightly hazy, purplish cast to
the southeast. There was something about the day that
filled me with foreboding.

The others, too, were uneasy. We completed our
search without finding anything of interest. We were just
as happy. The reefs were wild in this area, the bottom
rough and distorted, and the coral growth so lush, the

The Silver Shoals 285

sides of the rocks so abrupt, with ragged cliffs and caves
between, that it would have been a most difficult place in
which to dive.

Once, as we skirted a reef, I caught a glimpse of a
large shark passing directly beneath the boat. This was
the only shark any of us had seen the whole time we were
on the shoals, except the one Vital had caught the first
day. |
Toward noon we returned to Sea Diver, where Ed
was working on her ever-demanding machinery. We
found that he, too, was concerned about the weather.
None of us had any desire to be caught either at this an-
chorage in the center of the reefs or on the open banks |
outside, should there indeed be a storm brewing. And the
look of the boilers which now sucked at the reefs all
around us was a constant warning that these Silver shoals
were no place to be caught in bad weather.

We put Reef Diver aboard and ate our lunch. Then
Jane, Barney, Ed and I made one last pilgrimage to the
site of the wreck. This time we swam from Sea Diver
across the deep waters between, haunted by the thought
that the Spanish galleon must lie somewhere within our
range, and by our failure to find it.

We reached the reef and swam about, once more
scanning the ballast and the spots which we had dyna-
mited, white patches of broken coral in the surrounding
magnificence. Schools of blue parrot fish paraded in bold
beauty from golden pinnacle to burgeoning staghorn.
Tiny jeweled creatures darted in and out of coral caves,
and far below, half concealed beneath a coral ledge, a
tremendous grouper with an ugly and ill-tempered face
viewed the world about him with a jaundiced eye.

What joy to be part of this seabound, underwater
domain, to be allowed to share even a small part of it.

286 Sea Diver

Here on these Silver shoals, eighty miles from the near-
est land, constantly swept by the endless waters of the
Atlantic, we had found another world, of such beauty
as to confound any attempt to describe it.

Where were the schools of threatening sharks and
evil barracudas with hunger in their eyes? Where was the
giant octopus which waited to wind itself about its victim
as he approached the black, cavernous depths which con-
tained the wreck?

True, the lone barracuda which had disturbed me
that first day in the reef harbor was still around. I now
looked upon him as a friend. Frequently, when we were
in the water near Sea Diver or in the vicinity of the wreck
reef, we had seen him lingering on the fringes of our
shortened underwater field of vision. He never came very
close.

It is only natural for man to fear the unknown, and we
had had our share of qualms both before leaving for the
Silver shoals and after our arrival. Fortunately, familiarity
has a way of dealing with most fears. And that, tempered
with a cautious and careful approach to each problem as
it appeared, had saved us from any unfortunate experi-
ences. First we had ascertained and solved the problems
of safeguarding our boats in the midst of these reefs. Then
we had coped with the hazards of diving and maintain-
ing diving equipment among the rough, dangerous coral
formations. For nine days we had worked our crew and
our equipment to the full without a single mishap or the
slightest damage to either. We felt justifiably proud that
we had been able not only to survive, but to enjoy every
moment, although the history of the Silver shoals is one
of death and destruction.

As [ thought of the accounts of other expeditions to
the Silver shoals, I was impressed with the fact that this

The Silver Shoals 287

adventure of ours was one of the few in which the leaders
did not have to deal with mutiny before they were
through.

As far back as the time of William Phips, his crew
of desperadoes had twice tried to seize the ship from his
command and turn to piracy. They had sailed the waters
around the Ambrosias in search of the treasure ships as
long as they could take it, faced as they were with the
constant dangers of reefs and storms, the monotony of
stale food and water, and dreary days of unrewarding
search. Then they had rebelled.

On Alexander Korganoff’s visit to the Silver shoals in
1951, his expedition had come to an abrupt end when the
Dominican crew which had been recruited in Puerto
Plata refused to remain in the vicinity of the reefs. In
addition to their natural fears of being caught there in a
storm, their superstitious minds rebelled at this attempt
to disturb the ghosts of long-dead shipwreck victims.
When they attempted to take over the boat, Korganoff
and his colleagues held them off by threatening them with
dynamite caps. They headed back for Puerto Plata, arriv-
ing there just in time, for the mutineers finally set fire to
the boat.

And, just before leaving Cap Haitien, we had heard
of a schooner from England visiting the shoals in search of
the treasure. On board, in addition to the English owner,
was a “diviner,” who promised to detect the presence of
gold or silver with his wand, wherever it might be con-
cealed. There were also two French divers, who were to
dive up the treasure once it was located. There were
rumors of quarrels and disagreements, of knives being
wielded, of money disappearing on board as the unruly
divers forced the owner to put in at Turks island and set
them ashore. The remainder of the schooner’s crew ar-
rived at Cap Haitien completely broke, their dreams shat-

288 Sea Diver

tered, desperately seeking a means of replenishing their
finances.

Later, when Ed arrived at Turks island after leaving
the Criles and myself at Puerto Plata, he was greeted with
another tale of trouble. This time a group of men, includ-
ing Roscoe Thompson, our diving friend from Nassau, had
set out to search the Mouchoir banks for the treasure ship.
These banks lie just west of the Silver banks and are simi-
lar in composition. Upon their arrival the men spent only
one night on the banks, and this in spite of the stormy
protests of the captain, from whom they had chartered
the boat. The next morning the captain headed the boat
back toward Nassau, refusing to have any part in risking
himself or his craft in such dangerous waters. The men
were helpless to change his mind. Back in Nassau they
brought suit against him, claiming that he had contracted
to make the trip and that they had lost both time and
money by making the voyage to the spot and then being
deprived of the opportunity to search there.

It was easy for us aboard Sea Diver to understand
these incidents, for we, too, had lived under the tension
which comes from constant threats of danger, lack of sleep
night after night, and imaginations enlivened by the many
tales of unknown perils with which we had been so well
fortified at the start of the voyage. The wonder was that
we had come through it all so well.

Perhaps the fact that our group was so congenial,
that there was no division among the crew, that we ate to-
gether and worked together and shared our experiences as
one, with the same enthusiasm for a common objective,
made the difference. At any rate, we arrived in Puerto
Plata with a greater feeling of mutual esteem and fond-
ness for each other than ever before.

The Silver Shoals 289

A few days after Sea Diver's arrival in
Puerto Plata, Ed bid farewell to the Criles and myself at
the airport in Ciudad Trujillo, capital city of the Domini-
can Republic. From there he hastened to a marine-supply
store, where he purchased 140 feet of heavy chain. On
this, his second trip to the Silver shoals, he intended to be
fully prepared for any eventuality with an absolutely safe
anchorage inside the reef harbor.

Before returning to the site of the galleon wreck, how-
ever, Ed, Glenn, Vital and Kemp set out for Turks island,
where they were to meet Ed’s sister, Marilyn, and Mendel
Peterson. Marilyn had piloted the two of them from Wash-
ington to Nassau in the Widgeon, where they were joined
by a Bahamian friend, Leonard Thompson, long-time is-
land pilot and owner-manager of Skyways, Ltd., who was
to fly the plane back to Nassau. Ed had arranged for Mari-
lyn and Leonard to bring the plane to Turks island; from
there he intended to fly it over the Silver shoals. He wanted
to make absolutely certain that the expedition was search-
ing the right area for the Spanish-galleon wreck.

290 Sea Diver

Because of the existence of a U.S. security-guarded
guided-missile base at Turks island, they found it neces-
sary to change their seat of operations to the airport on
nearby South Caicos island, a part of the Turks island
group. From there, a few days later, the men took off in the
Widgeon to survey the Silver banks. While Leonard flew
the ship, Glenn, the map expert, was to compare the topog-
raphy of the land and water below with the charts and
drawings which we had been using. As soon as they were
over the shoals, Ed was to make pictures of the area.

They covered the banks thoroughly. As they flew over
the miles of scattered reefs, which looked like icebergs
floating in the blue seas beneath them, they were able to
locate, in the thickened section on the north edge of the
banks, the exact contours of the reefs shown on the early
charts, including the open channel to the west of the wreck
site and the two half moons to the east. The two yellow
buoys which we had left to mark the ballast and the old
anchor were clearly in evidence. In the center of the open
water inside the reefs could be seen the buoy which marked
the mooring we had left.

They took a series of pictures in black and white, some
color stills, and some with the motion picture camera be-
fore returning to Caicos to prepare Sea Diver for another
foray upon this spot, which they now felt certain contained
the remains of the wrecked treasure ship.

Leonard returned to Nassau with the Widgeon that
same day. The following morning Sea Diver headed for
Turks island to pick up the mail, and then, just before sun-
set, left that anchorage for the Silver shoals.

When they spotted the white line of breakers which
marked the northern edge of the shoals, they managed to
guide Sea Diver on a path through them to the south side
of the reefs. They turned east here, and worked their way
along between the coral heads as they searched for the dry

The Silver Shoals 291

rock and the yellow buoys which we had left. It was ten
thirty in the morning when they finally dropped anchor
in the reef harbor from which we had departed more than
two weeks before.

Ed felt that during our previous visit we had made a
very thorough survey of the area from the surface of the
water, as well as investigating many likely spots on the
bottom with the diving equipment and the metal detector.
This time he hoped to utilize the magnetometer by towing
it behind Reef Diver to seek out any metal remaining be-
neath the water. This instrument had proved a wonderful
aid in times past when it could be kept in adjustment, but _
there was never any certainty that it would work. He also
planned to explore the bottom thoroughly with the help
of the Scott equipment.

Ed was surprised to find that in the weeks since our
first trip, the general level of the ocean had receded, and
now at low tide many of the reefs were revealed slightly
above water. By this time the summer trade winds had also
appeared and blew every day at velocities of from twenty
to thirty-five knots. Even inside the reef harbor, the sea
was never calm, while outside it rolled in large waves and
broke with a great roar on the edges of the reefs.

Time after time Ed put on his Scott and, with a full tank
of air, descended to the bottom, where he swam in a sys-
tematic pattern at the base of the reefs, hunting for any
sign of a sunken ship or of wreckage from it. Here, fifty
to eighty feet beneath the surface, he found a completely
different-looking Silver shoals. Viewing these coral cliffs
from their base, he was fascinated with the caves, tunnels
and mysterious openings which confronted him. He kept
the underwater metal detector nearby, and whenever there
was any question as to the possible presence of wreckage,
he subjected the spot to a careful going over.

After days of systematic search, which covered the

292 Sea Diver

whole area we had previously searched from the surface,
he gave up the effort. There was absolutely nothing to be
seen of the remains of a lost treasure ship anywhere in
these waters, beyond what we had already found on our
previous search. The attempt to use the magnetometer was
also abandoned. It was impossible to keep it in adjustment
or to use it successfully in such a location, where it must
be operated in waters the depth of a few inches at one in-
stant and eight to ten fathoms the next.

Ed believes there is not a chance of finding the treas-
ure ship until better electronic equipment is developed
than is available today. He feels sure that whatever may
be left of the ship is completely hidden in the coral. But it
is also his conviction that the Hispaniola treasure was well
salvaged, and that Phips’s divers erred in their belief that
some of the cargo still remained in a part of the hull so en-
crusted in coral that it could not be reached.

“They were only banging against a coral head that
looked like part of a ship,” Ed claims. “It would be abso-
lutely impossible for a wooden ship to have survived in
these waters any number of years. Whatever broken re-
mains were left are undoubtedly completely hidden and
are now an integral part of the reef, for coral probably
grows faster and bigger on the Silver shoals than any other
place in the western hemisphere.

“Even if the day comes when it would be possible to
take electronic equipment over these reefs and actually
ascertain the location of the galleon wreck,” he maintains,
“if the treasure is still there, the explorer will then be faced
with the huge problem of dynamiting and dredging into
the heart of these coral reefs to secure it. We have already
learned what difficulties this will entail.”

I asked him about the remains of the old sailing ship
we had uncovered close to the spot where the Spanish
galleon may have gone down. He said that Mendel Peter-

The Silver Shoals 293

son had gone carefully over the blackened bits of ship's
rigging, the corroded coins and the broken green bottle.
It was his opinion also that the ship could not be the
treasure ship, for its anchor was much too small. Secondly,
the square-shaped bottle which we had uncovered was of
a type that was not made until the middle of the eighteenth
century. The ballast stones could have come from almost
any part of the known world, he said, and there was no way
to trace their origin.

As to the anchors, who could tell? Many anchors had
been lost on the Silver shoals over the years. Probably the
small one on the inside of the reef had belonged to the |
ship we had investigated. As to the larger one on the out-
side of the reef, it might have come from the galleon we
were seeking, or it may have come from one of the many
vessels which later worked the wreck.

Peterson agreed that if this later wreck could have
melted so completely into the reef in what was probably
less than two hundred years, it would not take many more
years for it to disappear completely, with even the ballast
stone buried in the ever-enveloping coral. He pointed out
that the Spanish galleon, which had lain there at least an
additional century, would undoubtedly be completely con-
cealed by now.

So the mystery of the Silver shoals still remains to
tantalize the treasure-seeking adventurer of the future.
Somewhere deep within the coral of those reefs on the
northern bank exists the last remains of the Spanish plate
wreck. Perhaps, in deep concealment, there lie enough
gold and silver to supply a modern-day Phips his fortune.
Yet there may remain only a few scattered bits which were
missed by the combined onslaught of the British expedi-
tions and the hundreds of vulturelike island vessels which
followed in their wake.

For the treasure hunter of the future who wants to risk

294 Sea Diver

a gamble—and what treasure seeker does not?—the Silver
shoals still offer a challenge. When it is possible to attack
these reefs with equipment able to tear them apart and
carefully sift the debris, there will still be a chance to un-
cover treasure. There is little doubt that in the years to
come there will be many more forays on the Silver shoals.

On the morning of May twenty-fourth, Sea Diver’s
crew collected the scattered marker buoys and put Reef
Diver aboard the mother ship, preparatory to leaving for
Turks island later that afternoon. Pete made a last dive to
free the mooring anchor and chain, and shortly after three
o'clock they set out. It did not take long to work their way
through the now-familiar reefs to the north, and in twenty-
five minutes they were in the deep Atlantic.

One would think this the conclusion to a risky under-
taking, but actually they were unwittingly entering upon
the narrowest escape of the whole expedition. It happened
thus.

When Sea Diver had been on a north heading for ten
miles in water more than two miles deep, Ed changed her
course to 295 degrees to carry her toward the northernmost
tip of Turks island, well clear of the Mouchoir shoals, which
lay to the west and slightly to the south. The automatic
pilot was set on this course, and while Sea Diver plowed
her way through a sea roughened by a heavy wind from
the southeast, the crew retired, leaving one man on watch
every two hours throughout the night. Ed was to follow
with the dawn watch.

When he appeared in the wheelhouse at four thirty
the next morning, he turned on the radar, expecting to
pick up an indication of Turks island ahead and to the
south. Instead, he was astonished to see only a few scat-
tered blurs on the uppermost part of the radar screen. Upon
orienting himself with the chart, he discovered to his horror

The Silver Shoals 295

that Sea Diver's position was south of Turks island and
west of the Mouchoir banks. It was an inescapable fact that
Sea Diver had cut a course directly through the northern-
most part of the Mouchoir banks, which are strewn with
ugly reefs similar to those on the Silver banks.

After verifying his position and putting Sea Diver on
a corrected course for her destination at Turks island, Ed
turned the watch over to Kemp and set out to discover
what had occurred to put Sea Diver in such a near-
disastrous position.

The autopilot had acted up several times since the
start of the long voyage, and, because the ship was so far
from marine service of any kind, Ed had been obliged to
repair it himself. So far, he had been able to remedy the
trouble each time. He had noted that an iron drive chain
had been used in its assembly and wondered at it. While
they were on the Silver shoals, he had taken the autopilot
apart once again. This time, unknown to him, the iron
drive chain had magnetized the compass, causing a fifteen-
degree error in its reading.

The more he considered the situation, the more he
realized how narrow had been their escape. For, had they
plowed upon one of these rocky heads in the dark, Sea
Diver would have sunk almost instantly. It would have
been impossible to launch Reef Diver from the listing
deck, and although there were adequate rubber rafts and
escape equipment, the crew would have found themselves
adrift fifty miles from the nearest land, with little chance
of being rescued in these little-traveled waters.

Fortunately Sea Diver had been spared to carry out
the remainder of our plans for the expedition—to revisit
Cap Haitien and to trace the course which Columbus may
have pursued on his first voyage through the Bahama is-
lands. We were indeed lucky.

296 Sea Diver

Part
Five
On the
Track of

Columbus

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Seven long weeks had passed from the
time I left Sea Diver at Puerto Plata until school was
ended for the summer, and Clayton and I could set out to
rejoin her at Cockburn harbor, southernmost settlement of
the Caicos islands. During this period, Ed, who had re-
mained aboard, had spent nearly four weeks in the
vicinity of the Caicos archipelago, and the rest of the time
between Cap Haitien and the Silver shoals.

Now, as Clayton and I headed for Nassau, I looked
forward eagerly to my part in Sea Diver’s program for the
next few weeks, for we planned to complete our investiga-
tion of exactly where, in the Bahamas, Columbus had made
his first landfall and what track he had sailed from there
to Cuba.

Our original idea of following and comparing the
two courses championed by Morison and Verhoog was
now augmented by another prospect, which had occurred
to Ed as he studied a chart of the Bahama area earlier
in the year. It promised most exciting possibilities.

On the Track of Columbus 299

When we had first studied the various courses which
Columbus might have sailed, we had eliminated all ex-
cept those proposed by Morison and Verhoog because of
obviously untenable arguments. Theirs Ed had traced on
a modern chart of the area, measuring off distances and
directions as the two scholars had indicated—the one
course emanating from Watling, the other from Caicos.
Both of these theories seemed to have many good points,
but they also contained many discrepancies.

After that, Ed and I pored over every English transla-
tion of Columbus’s Journal that we could get our hands
on. We found them all similar, with the exception of a few _
passages which had been interpreted in slightly different
ways. One of these had puzzled us when we first read it,
and further study had failed to make it any clearer. This
was an entry concerning the admiral’s approach to his
next anchorage, after leaving San Salvador.

We found that all researchers in the past had come
to the conclusion that Columbus had visited and named
four islands on his voyage through the Bahamas—first,
San Salvador; second, Santa Maria de la Concepcidén;
third, Fernandina; and fourth, Isabella. Yet, as Ed and I
interpreted the entries in his Journal for October four-
teenth and fifteenth, Columbus indicated that he had
reached and passed a second island after leaving San
Salvador, and before anchoring for the night off a third
island, which he had named Santa Maria de la Concep-
cidn.

... And as from this island, I saw another,
larger, to the west, I clewed sails up to navigate all
that day until night, and still was not able to reach
the westerly point; this island I named Santa Maria
de la Concepcién, and, about sunset, I anchored
near the said point...

300 Sea Diver

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Where was this additional island, if such there were?
It did not fit into the pattern of the chosen courses of
either Morison or Verhoog, which encompassed only the
accepted formula of four islands. From Watling island
it was impossible to fit this unnamed island into the track
which Morison had chosen.

As Ed compared the Journal entries for this period
with the chart showing Verhoog’s postulated Caicos land-
fall, he had an inspiration. After leaving Caicos, could
not Columbus have sailed right on past Mayaguana to-
ward Samana and anchored there for the night? Samana
then would have been his Santa Maria de la Concepcién.
From here, then, he could have continued on to Long
island, which would have been the third-named island,
Fernandina.

Morison had already selected Long island as Fernan-
dina, but we had been unable to reconcile the route he
had chosen from Watling with Columbus's descriptions
of the shores and distances along the way. Now, by ap-
proaching Long island from Caicos and Samana, the ques-
tionable pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall into place.
From here on we were inclined to agree with Morison that
Columbus had sailed to Crooked island, his fourth-named
island of Isabella, and from there had continued by way
of the Ragged islands to Cuba.

Here are the three suggested courses of Columbus
through the Bahamas which we investigated:

Islands named Morison Verhoog Link
by Columbus
I. San Salvador Watling Caicos Caicos
(Guanahani ) Mayaguana )
(passed

II. Santa Mariade Rum cay Mayaguana Samana
la Concepcién

302 Sea Diver

Islands named Morison Verhoog Link
by Columbus

III. Fernandina Long Acklin Long
island island
IV. Isabella Crooked Great Crooked
Inagua

This new route which Ed had evolved also eliminated
many of the discrepancies which we had found in Ver-
hoog’s chosen track from Caicos by way of Great Inagua.
Ed and I became very excited over this new possibility,
for it furnished an answer to many of the problems which
had hitherto appeared unsolvable.

Again we went over the various translations of the
Journal which were available. It seemed very necessary
to find someone with a thorough knowledge of old Spanish
to retranslate this particular section of the Journal for us
from the most authentic Spanish text available.

Providentially, a few weeks later, while we were in
Havana visiting friends, the conversation turned to our
pending expedition and some of the problems which it
presented. From our host we learned of Armando Alvarez
Pedroso, author of a Latin-American prize-winning bi-
ography of Columbus,* a man well versed in old Spanish
and, necessarily, thoroughly steeped in lore of the Great
Discoverer. We were introduced to Dr. Pedroso the next
day. He was immediately interested in our project and en-
thusiastically offered any assistance he might give.

To test our theory of the existence of an unnamed
island which Columbus might have passed after leaving
San Salvador, Ed asked Dr. Pedroso to read the original
Spanish text for October fourteenth and fifteenth and to
diagram his interpretation of it. Ed did this without tell-

* Cristdébal Coldn, biografia del descubridor, Habana, 1944.

On the Track of Columbus 303

ing him of our theory, for he wanted to get Dr. Pedroso’s
impression direct from the original Spanish.

To our delight, Dr. Pedroso produced a simple sketch
of San Salvador and the other islands to which Columbus’s
course had carried him that included the additional island
Ed had visualized. When we explained the reason for our
satisfaction at this interpretation, he was immensely in-
terested and offered to write his friend, Dr. Ramon
Menéndez Pidal, president of the Royal Academy of
Spanish Language in Madrid, to learn what he would in-
fer from a reading of this particular passage. Some time
later we received a letter from Dr. Pedroso, stating that
the learned Spaniard had been unable to find any fault
with our interpretation.

When the time came to make our personal investiga-
tion of the islands to which Columbus's fleet may have
sailed, we included the possibility that Columbus might
have first landed at Caicos, but then, instead of following
the course which Verhoog had outlined by way of Great
Inagua, sailed past Mayaguana to Samana and then to
Long island, where his course joined the one from Watling
island suggested by Morison.

I realized as J sat in Leonard Thompson’s living room
in Nassau the night of June twenty-third, attempting to
explain to him and his wife exactly why Ed and I were
investigating these possible courses of Columbus, that to
brief anyone on such a confusing subject in a short time
was no simple task. Leonard, who had accompanied
Marilyn and Mendel Peterson when they joined Sea Diver
at Turks island a few weeks earlier, was to fly Clayton
and me in our Widgeon to join Sea Diver at Caicos the
next day, and I wanted him to make some detours from
the usual direct route so that we could fly over some of
the islands which were included in the three theories we
were examining.

304 Sea Diver

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“What! You mean Watling island may not be San Sal-
vador?” he exclaimed, his face a mixture of surprise and
dismay, for he, like all Bahamians, was aware that in 1926
the Bahamas Legislature had officially changed the island’s
name to San Salvador in recognition of its being con-
sidered the place of Columbus's first landfall. Now it was
difficult for him to adjust his thinking. He became more
and more interested as I outlined the three possibilities
to him; and when we set out the next morning, he was al-
most as eager as I to seek out the various islands on our
schedule.

When we left Nassau airport, the cabin of the
Widgeon loaded with supplies for Sea Diver, it was so
early that the sun was still below the horizon. As the sun
rose, the lovely panorama of the Bahamas was revealed
beneath us, the irregular shapes of countless islands bor-
dering the shallow, greenish water of the banks and the
sapphire blue of deeper areas. Carefully following the
folded chart in my lap, I was alert for our first glimpse of
Watling island. At last it appeared, a dim shape on the
horizon. Then, as we closed on it, I saw beneath our wings
a diamond-shaped piece of land, so dotted with lakes and
ponds it appeared almost half water. At the extreme north
end lay a large reef harbor, encased by a string of under-
water reefs and a few cays lying just above water.

As we skimmed above the eastern shore I looked
down upon a coast of rocky headlands and occasional sand
beaches. The water offshore was ruffled with white seas
breaking on many scattered coral formations, making it
obviously foolhardy for any boat to attempt to reach the
rugged shore. There was a slender monument on one of
the points, and a white lighthouse that thrust skyward
from a higher rise of land. From a distance the western
shore appeared more approachable, and there were houses
and a road to be seen along its length.

306 Sea Diver

There was not a sign of another island in any direc-
tion, even from the height at which we were flying, but
soon after we had circled the lower end of Watling and
headed on a southwest course toward Long island, we
were able to make out Rum cay, the island which Morison
believed was Columbus’s Santa Maria de la Concepcidn.
It appeared very small in comparison with the other is-
lands we had flown over. It was covered with low trees,
interspersed with a few small ponds and the ruins of
several old plantation houses.

We continued on the course which Morison had se-
lected for Columbus, picking up the eastern coast of
Long island about a quarter of the way from its northern
tip. We skimmed this shore almost to its southern point
before heading southeast for Crooked island, Columbus’s
Isabella, according to Morison. Just off its northwest point
lay a small, rocky cay, surmounted by a lighthouse which
I identified as Bird Cay light. It was in the shelter of this
reef harbor that Morison believed Columbus’s three ships
had spent several days before setting out on the last leg
of their journey to Cuba.

All this time I had been staring with intense concen-
tration at whatever was revealed below, checking the
topography with the chart in my lap and scribbling hur-
ried notes on my observations. Somehow I had also man-
aged to keep Leonard busy answering a barrage of ques-
tions.

He was surprised when I called his attention to a
large lagoon near the north shore of Crooked island which
did not appear on the chart. This was a good example of
the many omissions and inaccuracies on even the best
charts of the Bahamas, making it impossible to compare
them successfully with the descriptions in Columbus’s
Journal.

Once we had turned east to fly along the north shores

On the Track of Columbus 307

of Crooked and Acklin islands, I discovered that a heavy
chain of reefs followed the whole extent of the two islands,
more than a mile offshore. As we left Acklin behind, the
coral could still be seen, bordering the eastern coastline
clear to the horizon. Although Verhoog had picked Acklin
as Columbus’s Fernandina, it did not appear to suit the
description too well, for Columbus had described it as
“all of it beach, free from rocks.”

We next flew along the north shore of Mayaguana is-
land, Verhoog’s Santa Maria de la Concepcién. Once again
I noted a long, protecting reef the full length of the island,
making it impossible to approach from the sea. If Colum-
bus had sailed along this coast, it would not be surpris-
ing if he had chosen to go on to the next island without
attempting to land.

Then at last the Caicos archipelago was ahead of us.
Would this prove to be the first land which Columbus saw
after weary months at sea? I wondered. The islands were
low and flat, dotted with many shallow bodies of water
and separated from each other by narrow channels. There
were sandy beaches along the north and west shores and
then long stretches of offshore reefs which fringed the
islands for miles.

As we flew over the break between Grand Caicos
and East Caicos, I looked down upon “a harbour large
enough for all the ships of Christendom.” Near an opening
at the south end of the reefs which formed the outer
edge of the harbor was a “piece of land which is formed
like an island although it is not one.” This could easily
have been converted into an island fortress such as Colum-
bus had described. And although a rough sea was breaking
on the reefs, inside, “the sea was no more disturbed than
water in a well.”

We were past so quickly that I had time only to
think how perfectly it all answered Columbus’s descrip-

308 Sea Diver

tion of the harbor at San Salvador, and then we were
flying over Cape Comete and Grassy creek.

Soon I saw beneath us the varicolored pattern of ex-
tensive acres of salt flats. Banks of completely dehydrated
salt gleamed blindingly in the sunlight as we circled a
small town at the end of South Caicos. Below, in the
nearby harbor, I spotted Sea Diver. I thrilled with pleased
anticipation as I saw a familiar figure drop into the dinghy
at her side and start across the water toward town.

We landed on a rough coral strip and taxied back to
the end of the runway. Ed arrived soon after in a battered
jeep, and we greeted each other happily after a separa-
tion of more than seven weeks.

As we drove into town, I was amazed to discover
that almost the entire community was built on salt. The
road itself was salt, and heaps of salt like snowdrifts
banked it on either side. As we neared the docks, we
passed large open sheds, inside which black-skinned work-
ers were attacking huge piles of the white crystals with
heavy shovels. As they filled sturdy hempen bags, others
loaded the bags into little carts hitched behind small,
patient donkeys.

At this point the whole tempo of the operation
changed, as the drivers set off for the water front with
whoops and a flourish of whips, like Roman charioteers
charging to the fray. Small sailboats scuttled back and
forth between a steamer, which lay at anchor in the open
road, and the docks, carrying the heavy bags of salt that
had been dumped from the donkey carts at the water’s
edge.

Ed hustled us into Wee Diver, which put-putted us
across the harbor to Sea Diver's anchorage. Three grinning
faces looked down upon us from the deck above—Mendel
Peterson, Vital and Kemp.

Ed cut the motor and we coasted up to the side of

On the Track of Columbus 309

the larger vessel. As I climbed over the rail, I was startled
by a sudden boom almost in my ear. The sound came from
a neat, small gun mounted on a handmade carriage on
the aft deck. The men eagerly explained that it was a
cannon they had picked up from a wreck off the shore
of East Caicos, and that Pete had sinee built the carriage,
a perfect model of the original ones of the eighteenth cen-
tury. It was he who had rammed in some gunpowder and
discharged it just as Clayton and I climbed aboard.

I found that Captain Weems was off on a trip in a
sailboat with two of the town fishermen, to investigate
at first hand the shores and inner waters where Columbus
might have preceded him. Pete and Ed were in enthusias-
tic agreement that Columbus might have landed at South
Caicos island. In several trips between Turks island and
Caicos they had had every opportunity to check the
course which Columbus might have pursued. And in a
cruise to the northeast, they had rounded the islands clear
to the western side, landing and inspecting various areas
as they went.

Attempting to bring the story of Columbus's first
glimpse of the New World into focus in my mind, I re-
called having read that on the night of October 11, 1492,
Columbus’s little fleet of three ships was boiling along
toward the west with sails full set. For several days the
crew had seen evidences of land, including a variety of
birds, broken branches, even a carved stick; and the
sailors were watching eagerly for their first glimpse of
the Indies. They were particularly keen because Colum-
bus had offered a reward to the first one who sighted land.

Columbus, too, was on the alert, and at ten o'clock
that night he called Pero Guierrez to verify the sight of a
light which he descried on the horizon. Soon after, a
sailor on the forecastle called out that he, too, saw a light.
They increased the vigilance of their watch, and at two

310 Sea Diver

o'clock Rodrigo de Triana caught the first glimpse of the
white banks and beaches of Guanahani glowing in the
moonlight.

While we sat on the aft deck of Sea Diver that after-
noon, sweltering in the extreme heat of the tropical sum-
mer, Pete and Ed described their observations as they
had followed this same approach with Sea Diver nearly
five hundred years later.

Seven miles north of the northernmost point of Turks
island, they found that they were able to see the top of its
high bluff and the lighthouse surmounting it. Ed said that
Columbus, standing on the poop deck of the Santa Maria,
could easily have seen the flicker of an Indian camp-
fire on this point as it appeared and disappeared behind
the rolling seas.

— we J — ee ee ee we ee

Wf
x

CAIC Pi
ISLANDS Cockburn (|:

arbor &
x

Reconstructed track of Columbus toward first landfall accord-
ing to Captain Verhoog. The only area along the eastern

Bahama islands where it would have been possible to see a
light four hours before reaching land.

On the Track of Columbus 311

Or, as Pete said, quoting the Journal, if “like a small
wax candle raised and lifted up,” it had been a torch
carried in the canoe of an Indian fisherman a few miles
offshore, it would still be possible for those on board
Columbus's ships to have seen it five miles away.

In either case, Pete declared, the presence of a light
was a good argument that land had to be nearby. And
the fact that Columbus claimed and received his own re-
ward of ten thousand maravedis was proof that all were
convinced the light was real. He and Ed said this was
an excellent argument for the Caicos landfall, for, as we
knew, both from the charts and from our airplane recon-
naissance, it would have been impossible for the three
ships to be near land or in the vicinity of a light if they
had been approaching Watling island.

Ed and Pete had then headed Sea Diver toward
Caicos, on the same course which they figured Columbus
might have followed. At noon, directly ahead, they had
sighted Grassy creek with its white sand beach. It could
have been on this very spot, they speculated, that Colum-
bus dropped his anchors at daylight and launched the
ships’ boats to go to shore.

Columbus's description of Guanahani fitted Caicos
perfectly, they said: “. . . very large and very flat; with
very green trees and much water. In the center of it, there
is a very large lagoon; there are no mountains, and all is
so green that it is a pleasure to gaze upon it.” I had noted
during my flight earlier that day that the island also an-
swered Las Casas’ description as being bean-shaped and
of considerable length.

Sea Diver had then sailed up and down these waters
several times, from the harbor at South Caicos around
the archipelago to a point beyond the ruins of Fort
George, on the western side. The men had explored the
large reef harbor at Jacksonville, the very one I had picked

312 Sea Diver

out from the air, and were almost certain it was the har-
bor which Columbus had described.

They said that near Jacksonville they had also come
upon a point of land jutting into the sea which answered
Columbus's description of where a fort might be built,

. a piece of land which is formed like an island al-
though it is not one, on which there were six houses; it
could be cut in order to form an island, in two days.”
Near this piece of land, Pete said, the admiral had re-
corded the presence of a lovely grove of trees and much
water. They had observed a small lake directly behind
the point of land.

Captain Weems did not return from his trip until
after ten that evening. With his customary exuberance,
he reported an interesting two days, during which he had
slept on the bare boards of the boat deck with his two
guides and subsisted on fish, conch and grits.

They had followed the east shore of South and East
Caicos to Jacksonville harbor, hugging the shore so that
the captain could examine it in close detail. From Jack-
sonville they had entered the Going-Through passage to
the shallow waters of the inner banks. Beating against
the wind and waiting for tides to rise sufficiently to allow
them to travel on the second day, it had taken them until
this late hour to return to Sea Diver.

Captain Weems described the great stumps which he
had seen whenever he went ashore, striking indications of
the trees once used by the Indians to fashion their dugout
canoes. Wild pigs and donkeys had dashed away as he
approached the ruins of old plantation houses and barren
stretches of what had once been cultivated farming
areas. He said the fishermen had told him that there were
Indian carvings on the walls of the caves near Jackson-
ville, but he had not had time to investigate them.

He said he was sure that the reef harbor at Jackson-

On the Track of Columbus 313

ville was the one which Columbus had admired. He was
much impressed, as he sailed along the shore in its vicinity,
at the sight of “many islands” to the west.

“Tm sure Captain Verhoog is right,” he said enthusias-
tically. “Everything indicated to me that Columbus must
have landed on Caicos.”

At sunrise two days later we set out with Sea Diver
from Cockburn harbor to complete our check of the three
courses which Columbus might have followed. The mo-
ment we were outside the protection of the island, we
found ourselves in a heavy, rolling sea which assailed Sea
Diver’s starboard side as we headed northeast to follow
the coastline. Captain Weems climbed the mast to the
crow s-nest, and Kemp was stationed on the pulpit at the
bow. While Ed steered Sea Diver, meanwhile keeping
track of reefs and shore line on the radar, I ran a messen-
ger service from one crew station to the other and, be-
tween times, watched the shore line from the pilothouse.

Along this lower part of the Caicos there was no
bordering reef, only a scattering of coral heads between
us and shore, until we had almost reached Cape Comete.
Then, a formed reef which commenced near shore forced
us seaward almost a mile before we could safely round the
cape. Once past this point and headed northwest along
the outer edge of the barrier reef, free of the persistent
southeast wind which had kicked up such an uncomfort-
able sea, I saw that from here on a continuous chain of
reefs followed the outline of the shore, forming calm, still
waters within its shelter. As I looked toward the western
horizon, I was conscious of many islands fading into the
distance. It would surely seem that with these glimpses
of land to the west, Columbus would have been tempted
to lead his fleet in their direction.

Staying well offshore, we followed the islands west-

314 Sea Diver

ward. That evening we anchored not far from the ruins of
Fort George, at the north tip of West Caicos, ready to take
off the next morning for Mayaguana, some forty miles
away, the island which Verhoog had chosen as Santa
Maria de la Concepcién. We spent the second night in the
lee of the northwest point of Mayaguana, in about the
same spot Verhoog declared Columbus had anchored be-
fore sailing the next day for Acklin island, some forty
miles to the west.

It was at this point that we found ourselves differing
from Verhoog, for we believed, according to the quotation
from the admiral’s log mentioned on page 300, that
Columbus, following the reef-bound north shore of
Mayaguana, had continued on to Samana without at-
tempting to land.

And as from this island [Mayaguana] I saw
another, larger, to the west [Samana], I clewed
sails up to navigate all that day until night, and
still was not able to reach the westerly point; this
island I named Santa Maria de la Concepcion, and,
about sunset, I anchored near the said point to see
if there was gold there.

. When we set out the next morning, Ed headed Sea
Diver directly north. We were all more serious than
usual, for we realized that this new theory of Ed’s, which
depended on the inclusion of an additional island, would
stand or fall by the test we were about to make.

Ed believed that if Columbus's ships had continued
on the same course they had followed along the northeast
coast of Caicos, they would have bypassed Mayaguana,
finally reaching a point where Samana would have been
visible on the horizon. He believed that even though
Acklin was closer to Mayaguana than Samana, Columbus
would have sighted Samana first from this hypothetical

On the Track of Columbus 315

spot because of its hundred-foot elevations, whereas the
northern part of Acklin was low and flat.

By constantly checking the position of the two islands
on our radar screen, Ed was able to pinpoint the section
of water where he figured Columbus might have first
sighted Samana. Acklin was then twelve miles distant
and Samana thirteen, in almost opposite directions. Then
Captain Weems climbed to the crow’s-nest, for, at these
distances, neither island was visible from the deck.

“Youre right,” he shouted down to us. “There's
Samana off the starboard bow.” He reported that there
was no sign of Acklin, even though we were a mile closer
to it.

From there on, the course we had selected led toward
Samana and farther away from Acklin. Soon the whole
shore line of Samana could be seen from the deck by
eye. It covered at least 45 degrees of the horizon, and,
with its hundred-foot hills, looked like a large island.

Ed was jubilant at this support of his theory. Even
Captain Weems appeared impressed, although he was
still unwilling to grant that Verhoog might be wrong. Pete
said, “Well, we've got to admit it would certainly be logi-
cal for Columbus to have ended up at Samana.”

As we turned Sea Diver south to inspect low-lying
Acklin island, Verhoog’s Fernandina, we argued the merits
of Verhoog’s choice, which had taken Columbus from
Acklin to Great Inagua and then across the Columbus
banks to Cuba. Ed and I had felt convinced that Verhoog
was wrong ever since spring, when we had sailed past
Crooked island to Great Inagua on our way to Haiti.
Columbus's colorful description of events and the areas
involved just did not tally with Verhoog’s selections.

And then before we had sailed for three hours,
we saw an island to the east, toward which we

316 Sea Diver

steered, and all the three vessels reached it before
midday, at its northern point, where there is an islet
and a ridge of rocks on its outside, to the north, and
another between it and the main island . . . there
was a north wind, and the said islet lay on the course
of the island of Fernandina from which I had navi-
gated east-west...

Yet we had found eighty-seven miles of open sea
between Castle light at the southwest point of Acklin
and the northeast point of Great Inagua. At Sea Diver's
cruising speed of eight knots it had taken us over eleven
hours to cover this distance. Although we had left Castle
light behind at four thirty in the morning, it was past
three in the afternoon before Captain Weems first glimpsed
the tops of the hills on Great Inagua from the crow’s-nest,
and it was five thirty before we finally reached the north-
east cape of the island.

“How come Columbus got here before noon in those
old tubs of his,” Clayton queried disrespectfully, owinan
it’s taken us a whole day with Sea Diver?”

“Yes,” returned Ed, “and in order to get Columbus to
Cape Hermoso, where they anchored for the night, Ver-
hoog says they sailed another forty-four miles from here
to Northwest point, on the other side of the island.”

“And what about the direction?” I put in. “Columbus
navigated east-west to reach the northern point of Isa-
bella. We've been sailing almost southeast to follow
Verhoog’s theory.”

We cut and slashed at Verhoog’s arguments. Before
we were finished, we felt we had pretty thoroughly dis-
proved the course he had advanced. Yet his arguments for
Caicos as the first landfall still seemed sound. We were
impatient to test out if Columbus might have landed at
Caicos, and then, by following Ed’s suggested track, might

On the Track of Columbus 317

have eventually joined up with the one Morison had
picked by way of Long and Crooked islands.

Ed and I have since prepared a thorough exposition
of our investigations, in which we have attempted to pre-
sent the arguments both for and against all three theories,
so I will not go into the details of the days of search which
followed our visit to Samana.*

Briefly, we headed south from Samana toward Acklin,
anchoring overnight at Crooked island, close to Bird Rock
light. After inspecting the western side of Crooked island
the next morning, we sailed north along the coast of Long
island to Clarencetown harbor, just a few miles north of
the rocky cape that stands out prominently halfway down
the lower section of Long island.

Two days later we headed for Rum cay, Morison’s
Santa Maria de la Concepcion, and in the late afternoon
dropped anchor in the lee of Watling island. This was the
island which tradition said was the place of Columbus's
first landfall. Necessarily it was the last to be visited, as it
was farthest north on our homeward route. Until we had
made a careful comparison of its qualifications with those
of the Caicos archipelago, it was impossible to draw any
conclusions.

Our anchorage close by the small settlement of
Cockburntown was an open harbor formed by an indenta-
tion in the shore line. From the chart it appeared to be
the only section of the entire island with even partial
protection and approaches free from coral heads. We were
boarded soon after our arrival, first by the commissioner
of the island, and later by a young naval lieutenant and
his bride. From them we learned that a U.S. guided-
missile base was being established on Watling.

* A New Theory on Columbus's Voyage Through the Bahamas.
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 135, No. 4, published by the
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, Jan. 20, 1958, Publication 4306.

318 Sea Diver

This, then, was the explanation of the strange towers
and structures on the horizon which had aroused our
curiosity as Sea Diver approached that afternoon. For the
first time in history, the island had come alive, its lethargic
inhabitants startled into unfamiliar but remunerative ac-
tivity as they labored at roads and pipe lines and the ex-
pansive quarters which seem so necessary to American —
forces overseas.

The next morning we started out eagerly to circle
the island with Sea Diver. We planned to inspect Watling
carefully from offshore. Another day we would return
with one of the small boats to examine whichever loca-
tions seemed to require additional scrutiny. We wanted
first to determine on what part of the island Columbus
might have landed, and second, whether the descrip-
tions in his Journal coincided with the geography of
Watling.

We headed north along the west shore as Morison
believed Columbus had traveled in his long boat when
he “. . . went along the island in a north-northeasterly
direction, in order to see the other part, which lay to the
east, to see what was there and also to see the villages.”

As Sea Diver approached the north end of Watling,
we came upon a large harbor formed by reefs and cays
which carried on for miles to the northeast. We soon dis-
covered that we must navigate carefully, for underwater
reefs extended into the sea well beyond the defining line
of cays.

As soon as we left the shelter of the island, we began
to meet some big seas, and Sea Diver rolled and pitched,
occasionally taking water over her starboard bow. It was
fortunate that Ed went below just when he did to check
the engine room, for a port had been left open, and his
workbench, with its valuable tools and machinery, was
dripping with salt water. We came about immediately

On the Track of Columbus 319

and took shelter in the lee of Green cay, while the men
cleaned and wiped each piece with oil before the salt
could do any permanent damage.

It was afternoon before we got under way once
more. As we skirted the marker at the northern point of
the reefs and turned to follow the eastern shore, we came
upon a rocky headland at the extreme northeast point
of the island which might indeed qualify as “the piece of
land which is formed like an island although it is not one”
of Columbus’s Journal. We resolved to return the follow-
ing day and inspect this cape and harbor with Wee Diver.

By now the wind was blowing stronger than ever, and
the pale green of the reef harbor was tumbled with white-
capped waves. Sea Diver rolled unpleasantly as she nego-
tiated the tumultuous waters along the eastern shore, well
clear of the broken white water which marked the
numerous coral heads. There was no protective chain of
reefs here, and we were convinced of the riskiness of
attempting to reach either the sandy beaches or the al-
ternating projecting headlands which formed the coast.

“Columbus would have had a tough time getting his
boats in to that shore,” Captain Weems commented. “No
wonder Morison had him sail around to the other side of
the island.”

All day we had been on the alert for some spot in our
circuit of the island which might give us Columbus's im-
pression that “I saw so many islands that I could not de-
cide to which I would go first.” Unlike Caicos, where the
many islands in the distance had been most noticeable,
there was not a trace or an illusion of any other islands
here at Watling.

As we rounded the southwest point of the island,
knowing that Rum cay lay some twenty miles distant, we
strained our eyes in its direction. Captain Weems climbed
once more to the crow’s-nest and swept the horizon with

320 Sea Diver

his binoculars. There was not a sign of land anywhere. We
headed back toward our anchorage off Cockburntown,
convinced that if Watling island was Columbus's San
Salvador, he would perforce have landed on its western
shore.

Early next morning we set out once more to explore
the reef harbor and the point of land which formed its
eastern border. We had hoped to enter one of the pas-
sages between the reefs with Sea Diver and anchor her in
the harbor, but after taking soundings of the approaches
to these openings from the skiff, we decided it would be
safer to leave her in the open water leeward of Green
cay.

A strong wind similar to that of the previous day was
kicking up a choppy sea inside the harbor, but we did
not realize until after we had set out in Wee Diver to
cross the three miles of water between us and the distant
point, that it might actually be dangerous to attempt this
journey in a small boat.

There were four of us in the skifi—Captain Weems,
Pete, Ed and myself—and with our combined weight
there was very little freeboard. I sat with Ed on the stern
seat while he ran the outboard. The other two sat side by
side amidships, busily occupied in bailing the quantities
of water which slopped over the bow as Wee Diver caught
the tops of the bigger seas. We were soon soaked to the
skin from the salt spray which continually drenched us.

We were making scarcely any headway, with wind
and sea and tide against us, and Ed would have turned
back, I'm sure, had he not feared we would be swamped
if we were caught in the trough of the waves. Instead he
eased Wee Diver gradually toward shore so that we met
the seas on our port bow rather than heading directly
into them. Ashore, clouds of white coral dust rose toward
the sky as two huge bulldozers dug into the rocky soil.

On the Track of Columbus 321

The sight of small figures moving about the machines
comforted me. Should we be swamped, help was not too
far away.

I breathed easier when we finally reached the quieter
waters in the shelter of the peninsula which was our
goal. We drew Wee Diver up on a lovely little crescent
of beach beneath white sandstone cliffs whorled into
hollow caverns by wind and sea, and followed a steep
path up the cliffs. We reached the top only to be assaulted
by the same boisterous wind which had plagued us all
across the harbor. White spray dashed high into the air
against rock bastions which thrust into the ocean, and
cascades of white foam enveloped the broken coral rocks —
offshore. To the south stretched an irregular coast, and
on the highest piece of land gleamed the white exclama-
tion point of the lighthouse.

Returning to the shelter of the inner beach, we waded
through shallow water to investigate the break which
separated this picturesque rocky point, making an island
of the outer portion at high tide. At low tide it would
indeed be possible to walk across the intervening pas-
sage. It was easy to imagine Columbus viewing this spot
and envisioning a fortress upon its extremity.

But somehow the harbor itself failed to satisfy his
description of a sea “no more disturbed than water in a
well.” Neither had we found “deep water and a harbour
large enough for all the ships of Christendom, the en-
trance to which is very narrow.” And we wondered how,
in a limited time, the Santa Maria’s longboat would have
been able to cover these great distances.

Although we had succeeded in arriving at our desti-
nation safely with Wee Diver, we found ourselves in
trouble immediately we set out to make the return trip.
Salt water had at last worked into the outboard. At first it
only sputtered and protested; then it gave up completely.

322 Sea Diver

Using an oar to steer, for we had not yet reached
the extremely rough water beyond the shelter of the
point, we allowed the wind to carry us toward the naval
installation farther down the shore. As Wee Diver grated
to a stop in the offshore shallows, we were surrounded
by a crowd of curious Navy lads. While Ed and Pete set
about removing the outboard to examine it, Captain
Weems disappeared in the direction of the encampment
in search of tools. He soon returned, accompanied by
Commander Redmond, commandant of the base.

As Ed carefully took the engine apart, the men circled
about him, absorbed in the mechanics of the operation
like all males everywhere. Their response to Captain
Weems’s questions about the harbor was unanimous. It
was nearly always rough, they said. Commander Red-
mond expressed amazement that the four of us had suc-
ceeded in crossing the turbulent harbor in such a small
boat. He expressed concern at our attempting to return to
the far-distant Sea Diver with wind and sea behind us.
He said that it was against rules for the men on the
station to venture out on the harbor except on the days
when it was calm.

Ed soon had the outboard back in operation, and he
and Pete set out to return to Sea Diver. Captain Weems
and I accepted the Commander's invitation to take us
across the island by car to Cockburntown, where Sea
Diver would eventually return.

That afternoon Commander Redmond drove us over
the rough, rocky excuse for a road which led to the light-
house. From its top we could see almost the whole
island. I noted particularly the chaotic water off the east
shore, and the narrow, rocky point which divided it from
the scarcely less agitated reef harbor.

On a neighboring hilltop is the tall shaft which com-
memorates Columbus’s first landfall. I asked Commander

On the Track of Columbus 323

Redmond if we might stop there before returning to Cock-
burntown. To my surprise he told us that it was impossible
to reach it in the jeep, for there was no road part of the
way, and it would be necessary to take a boat across one
of the inland lakes. I wondered how the monument had
been built in the first place back in 1891, and why the
Chicago Herald had selected such an inaccessible location
for it.

The commander left us beside a small marker near
Sea Diver’s anchorage at Cockburntown. It had evidently
been placed there by an enthusiastic yachtsman, for it
read, “Christopher Columbus made the first recorded
landing in the New World on this beach, Oct. 12, 1492.
Yawl Heloise, Feb. 25, 1951.”

“At least Columbus would have been able to get
ashore at this point,” Captain Weems commented, “which
is more than you can say about the spot where they put
the other monument.”

Sea Diver appeared soon after without dropping an-
chor and the small boat was sent in to shore to pick us up.
Ed was eager to get under way immediately, for he
planned to anchor overnight off Cat island, the first step
on our way back to Nassau.

Our tour of inspection was at an end. Our check of
the islands and routes which we had set out to examine
was complete. It remained now to digest the information
we had gathered and to try to reach a conclusion.

There was no obvious answer. As we had realized
from the beginning, each one of the three theories we had
studied had its good points and also its discrepancies
when viewed from Columbus's Journal account. And as
there were no existing early charts to aid us, the chief
value of our voyage had been in comparing Columbus's
word pictures of the islands and waters he had visited

324 Sea Diver

with their counterparts as suggested by Morison, Verhoog
and ourselves.

At the start Captain Weems had been quite con-
vinced that Verhoog had found the correct solution. Ed
and I had at first leaned toward Morison’s theory, and
later awakened to the possibilities of the Caicos landfall.
Pete had remained distinctly neutral, although when Ed
had come forth with the idea of the unknown island,
thus making it possible to trace Columbus's course by way
of Samana, this suggestion had immediately excited his
interest.

Now, with our search at an end, as we set out from
our overnight anchorage at Cat island, the four of us
gathered in Ed’s and my cabin below decks, leaving Kemp
and Vital to guide Sea Diver across Exuma sound. The
time had come to bring together all the information which
we had collected, and, if possible, to produce an answer.

Once more we went over the entire problem, using
Columbus’s Journal as our guide. Beginning with the
days preceding the landfall, we reread each passage and
analyzed it, while I made notes of each person's point of
view. We were not satisfied with using one translation,
but continually checked with various interpretations as
we went along.

By this time Captain Weems’s championship of the
Verhoog theory had softened, worn down by point after
point of unexplainable differences between it and the
original text. Morison’s arguments made a better showing,
for there were fewer obvious discrepancies, but we found
it impossible to reconcile the circumstances surrounding
the first landfall with Watling island and its environs.
Here, we felt, Verhoog had made a good case for Caicos,
which we had strengthened by actual investigation.

As our discussion proceeded, both Pete and Captain
Weems showed an increasing interest in Ed’s theory of

On the Track of Columbus 325

the additional island on Columbus’s route, which in turn
supported the theory that his first landfall had been at
Caicos.

All that day we argued, and again that evening, after
we had anchored for the night just beyond Ship channel
in the Exumas. We did not leave for Nassau until late
the following morning, for rain and cloudy skies made it
impossible to cross the coral-strewn Yellow banks until
there was better visibility. Instead we once again gath-
ered in our cabin to continue our debate. Each controver-
sial point was discussed, summarized and recorded, along
with the passage involved, on the dictaphone.

Our final conference took place the next morning |
at Sea Diver's dock in Nassau. Carefully we rechecked
every point. We found that there were a few differences in
translation and interpretation which must be cleared up,
as well as additional information which could only be
obtained when Pete had returned to the Smithsonian. We
also listed passages from the Journal which we planned
to ask Dr. Pedroso to retranslate.

But when all the factors had been carefully weighed,
we found that everyone was inclined to agree that of the
three theories involved, Ed’s revolutionary idea of the
unnamed island contained fewer discrepancies, and fitted
more completely the descriptions given by Columbus from
beginning to end, than either of the other two.

Unless additional original material or charts should
be turned up in the future, we concluded there could
never be positive knowledge of Columbus's exact route;
but we had proved—to our own satisfaction, at least—
that he landed first at Caicos and from there followed a
course from Mayaguana to Samana to Long island, and
from there to Crooked island, the Ragged islands, the
Columbus banks and Cuba.

326 Sea Diver

Epilogue

ce)

Sea Diver’s anchor chain rattled through
the riding chock as her anchor spun down through the
clear water to the white-sand bottom, less than two
fathoms below. We were once more in the lee of Miss
Roder cay, on the north Bahama banks. Many months had
passed since first we anchored on this spot in our search
for the brass cannon on the reefs outside. During that
interval Sea Diver had toiled hundreds of dangerous
miles throughout the Caribbean. Her once-white hull
showed the months of hard labor she had endured, a
battle-scarred veteran of Cap Haitien, the Silver shoals,
and those long weeks beneath the summer sun while we
had sought Columbus’s probable track.

We had detoured here on our way to home port, for
Ed could not bring himself to return to Miami without one
more attempt to locate the brass cannon. This time the
Danish salvager, Willy Dahl, who had originally told
Ed of the barrels, was also on board. He had been very
puzzled at our failure to locate the guns. He was sure Ed
had searched in the wrong spot and was confident he could
guide us to the right one without any difficulty.

Epilogue 327

Strong northeast winds and heavy seas had made
our last trip to these northern reefs a wild experience.
This time, too, the winds were blowing vigorously, but
fortunately from the southeast, thereby promising calmer
waters in the vicinity of the reefs. We soon had Reef
Diver launched and the three of us set out in the compell-
ing heat of the July noon to cross the intervening five
miles of water. In place of the terrifying, breaker-
drenched reefs which had frightened me so on our previ-
ous visit, we now found ourselves approaching innocent-
looking patches of brown rock immersed in the clearest of
turquoise waters. Ed guided Reef Diver among them,
sometimes over them when there was sufficient depth.
Soon we were heading toward a scattering of dry rocks
which I remembered only as one forlorn coral head that
had appeared and disappeared in foaming masses of waves
and spray.

Then we were in the open ocean, but this time it was
calm, for the reefs behind us acted as a barrier to the
southeast wind. We were even able to open the forward
ports without danger of a salt-water deluge while Ed and
I watched the bottom through the glass plates. Willy, at
the wheel, steered Reef Diver straight toward the area
we had searched before, a large clear expanse about two
hundred yards from the dry rocks, bordered with coral
heads just beneath the surface of the water.

Reef Diver circled and circled. Ed and I concentrated
our gaze upon the wide ridges of pure white sand which
patterned the bottom beneath us. Occasionally, angular
edges of coral rock, well decked in living green-brown sea
growth, tricked us into imagining cannon shapes, so long
and narrow were they. We searched for nearly an hour
before concluding that any remains of a shipwreck here
could only be buried deep beneath the sand.

So we anchored Reef Diver, and Ed and Willy went

328 Sea Diver

over the side with face masks, Ed carrying the metal de-
tector. Reef Diver's usually dependable engine chugged
on as it operated the compressor for the divers. The men
had not been down long when they headed hurriedly
for the boat. They pulled off their masks, complaining
of unpleasant fumes in the air they were breathing. Ed
made some adjustments to the compressor and they
disappeared again beneath the water.

A few moments later Ed was back again. This time
he handed the metal detector over the side to me. It had
sprung a leak, he said, and was out of commission. He
returned to the bottom. In no time both men were back.
The fumes had become most unbearable, and they were
concerned as to what was producing them. No use taking
chances. They removed their masks and climbed into the
boat. This was something that had never happened be-
fore. Our equipment was beginning to show the result of
its long, hard usage.

So once more Ed and I took our places in the cabin
to watch through the glass bottom while Willy guided
Reef Diver over and over the same location. The salvager
was insistent that we were on the right spot, and that
the cannon should be there. Either they were completely
buried in the sand, he said, or someone had removed them
since he had last seen them two years before. Again he
described their appearance, about twenty dull metal bar-
rels scattered in a disorderly pile, half buried in the
white sand.

When we returned to Sea Diver at the end of the
afternoon, we had not seen a trace of wreckage anywhere.
Once again the brass cannon had eluded us. Ever since
that first winter, when Robby’s and Webby’s tales of brass
cannon on the north Bahama banks had drawn us there,
we had been tantalized by hopes of finding them. Never a
year had passed without at least one attempt to follow up

Epilogue 329

the many tales we continued to hear of their existence.

Nevertheless, when we headed Sea Diver into the set-
ting sun later that afternoon on our way back to Miami, it
was without any feeling of disappointment. Like solitaire,
this was a game which one might expect to win only once
in a while. The gamble had been part of the fun. It really
didn’t matter. We would try again. Someday, perhaps,
we would find those brass cannon.

For five wonderful years we had sought adventure in
pursuit of evidences of the past. From the time when
Columbus first sighted San Salvador through all the ex-
citing days of Spanish conquest, the colorful centuries
when buccaneers and pirates dominated the Spanish
Main and countless richly laden treasure ships traversed
the Florida straits—we had relived the eventful history of
the New World.

At the base of scattered coral reefs from the remote
Silver shoals to the now-populous Florida keys, and on
shallow ocean floors, we had uncovered symbols of a
world of the past, meanwhile discovering in this under-
water kingdom new horizons of our own, a peace and tran-
quility seldom encountered on the earth’s surface.

But we had made only a beginning. We looked for-
ward to many years of this soul-satisfying life at sea, as
well as to the unpredictable and fascinating finds which
would undoubtedly be part of it. Next year we would set
out with Sea Diver once again, on another voyage of dis-
covery. Life was a wonderful adventure, and we were
content.

330 Sea Diver

Bibliography

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bean with some information on photography). New
York, Putnam.

Brookfield, Charles M., and Griswold, Oliver, They All Called
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Burney, James, History of the Buccaneers of America. Re-
printed from edition of 1816. New York, W. W. Norton &

Co., 1950.

Carson, Rachel L., The Sea Around Us. New York, Oxford
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Chapin, Henry, and Smith, F. G. Walton, The Ocean River.
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Columbus, Christopher, Autografi de Cristoforo Colombo in
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Bibliography 331

Cousteau, Capt. J. Y., The Silent World. New York, Harper &
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Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, The Everglades: River of Grass.
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Hanna, Alfred J. and Kathryn A., Florida's Golden Sands.
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Peterson, Mendel L., The Last Cruise of H.M.S. “Loo.”
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Rieseberg, Lt. Harry, Treasure Hunter. New York, Robert
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Rodman, Selden, Haiti, the Black Republic. New York, Devin-
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Snow, Edward Rowe, True Tales of Pirates and Their Gold.
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Verhoog, Pieter, Guanahani Again (the landfall of Columbus
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Bibliography 333

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